


New Home on the Range

by Euryd1ce



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, American Wild West, Blackmail, Cowboy AU, Cowtale - Freeform, Demisexuality, F/M, Gambling, Mail Order Brides, Polyamory, Prostitution, Romance, Speciesism, reader is female
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euryd1ce/pseuds/Euryd1ce
Summary: The Brothers Serif, Sans and Papyrus, order a bride by post, hoping to save their ranch from foreclosure by the human banks but the woman they receive is trying to escape her sordid past. In the time they have left, can they bridge their differences and work together or will the sinister forces of bureaucracy ruin their chances of making new relationships?
Relationships: Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 27
Kudos: 117





	1. A Dark Grey Coat

New Home was small, a two-bit border town a day’s ride outside Ebbotton, itself a long ride from Springfield, where sat the governor of the whole territory. The train out this direction was rickety and infrequent, shipping livestock and bulk victuals, mostly. Though seemingly perpetually on the verge of total collapse, Old Reliable rolled in twice a week without fail, tweeting and clanking its way into the station, and travelers were informed a few minutes before arrival by the childish, wooden-sounding whistle. The driver, a monster shrouded in hooded grey robes topped jauntily by a striped engineer’s hat, remained proud of their punctuality even in the face of such infrastructural challenges as loose tracks, missing spikes, and inclement weather for, as fresh visitors to New Home learned, the engine was entirely powered by their magic, explaining the smoothly executed loops over and around unexpected obstacles. Reliable's steam, merry white poffs like a child's drawing, disappeared a yard or two behind the stack whereupon they fizzlingly dissipated. 

In the station waited a pair of brothers, one tall and one short, acting as stones in the bustling weekday river of activity. Buffeted by feathery edges of skirts and shawls while remaining themselves unmoving, planted against the motley current, they watched the train come in. 

She wore a dark grey coat buttoned snugly across her figure and a sensible, dark green skirt. It matched the modest spray of late spring blooms tucked into the ribbon of her flat, straw hat. In one hand she held a faded carpetbag and with the other she clung to the step-down rail. Her little white lace gloves would surely be stained peat black by the end of the hour but she heedlessly held herself aloft, looking this way and that for her party.

The flowers they held did their jobs - a bright red spray of beebalm in the sweaty grasp of one and a few shy blooms of prairie flax in the other’s - and she spotted them swiftly, alighting from the step and then vanishing below the sea of heads and shoulders. Her pretty, flat hat with its rose-pink ribbon bobbed between the New Home citizens, tracing out a dance that pulled them closer and farther together. 

They gulped. Would she be pretty? It was typical to provide a portrait of oneselves along with a letter of courtship but the brothers had boldly chosen not to, inviting their correspondent not to do the same if she wished. She did not and as a result, they had only her telegram as proof that she existed - just 27 words to inform the boys that a potential bride had accepted their invitation and that she was looking forward to meeting them both. Sans kept it in his breast pocket to remind them of their purpose.

**From __________ of Ebbotton STOP Thank you Misters Serif STOP I will arrive via the afternoon train June XX, 19XX STOP I eagerly anticipate our meeting STOP**

Papyrus made a lot of that word, 'eagerly' but Sans had difficulty sharing his younger brother's enthusiasm. In the first place, he had reservations about trusting a human from the county seat, a home for conservative bigots and political zealotry in his experience. Would there be hard feelings if they went out of their way to make her feel comfortable and respected and still, she declined their offer? If she were stern or unkind it would be easy for them to shake her hand and express thanks for her time, they thought, but what if they grew to like her? Surely _they_ didn’t know but the inner lives of pretty women had eluded man and monster long before now. They would think of something else, no doubt, so technically there was nothing to lose. Right?

_*a partner to help run the business, a friend to share our home; it seems like a lot out of someone responding to an advertisement we paid only 30 gp to post. anyone can be nice through a telegram._

The tall monster bumped his brother’s shoulder and smiled widely, nervously, nevertheless bracing them both for their future to step from behind the plumage of two Snowbirds and greet them. Alas, she was very pretty.

“Good afternoon. You are the Serif brothers, I presume? I am pleased you received my telegram in time. I feared arriving upon an empty platform.” 

She wore a sensible smile to match her attire and used an educated, well-cultivated accent, something like Miss Toriel would teach her students to use. It might have charmed Papyrus right away but Sans didn’t relax his guard. Her eyes, a plain, wooden brown, remained fixed in a falsely pleasant expression even after taking in the whole of their appearances; boots, jeans, and flannels, upsettingly dusty from the road. They’d hardly had time to splash water on their bones before high-tailing it to catch the train and so must present such an haphazard image to her cultured eyes. She saw all this and acted as though no part of this were out of the ordinary, not even the sight of the shorter skeleton standing on a bench so as to appear equal in height to his brother. 

As they agreed previously, the charismatic skeleton stepped up first and thrust out his handful of flowers and a hand to shake. “Yes, Ma’am! My name is Papyrus Serif, 50% owner of the Lazybones Ranch!” he declared, loudly enough to catch every earfin in town. What a tremendous voice! “Thank you so very, very, very much for coming to meet us!” After vigorously shaking her hand, gave it the kind of polite bow their mother would have liked over it and mimed a kiss about two inches away from her knuckles. “Muah!” 

“Oh my!” She popped her carpetbag on the ground and greeted him in turn, quite formally. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Serif.” 

“This mannerless oaf is my brother, Sans. In spite of his sourpuss, he is also glad to see you!”

The shorter monster quickly masked the stiffness of his smile and handed his flowers to their visitor, just so. “yes, sorry,” he said, with a voice much deeper than his lanky counterpart’s. “i hope your trip was comfortable. better than spendin' the night in th' barrel, eh?” He winked and let go quickly, despite his gentle rib at himself. She returned his expression, a mirror of his own civil discomfit.

“Thank you,” she said. “It was. Shall we?”

Sans took her carpet bag, Papyrus took her arm, and the three exited the train station together, flitting from topic to topic as they walked down the iron stairs and along a creaky wooden sidewalk beside Main street and back. 

“How do you like the weather, ma’am? It will be cool like this for some time yet, which I prefer because it will be comfortable to wear our scarves!”

“It is splendid,” she answered, trotting gracefully around a muddy hole in the road. “What kind of scarf is that, handmade?”

“Yes! I use the advanced method. The one that uses two highly specialized tools to gently stab the yarn into shape!”

“Then, you knit?”

“You’re already familiar with the technique, stupendous!”

“Mmm. I used to save the patterns from the weekly periodical.”

A step or two behind, Sans gathered her answers and began to sketch a portrait of their stranger, composed of such lines and shades as he could gather from the surface detail of their chatter. Papyrus jovially regaled her about the knitting class he took by mail, a herculean effort that had endured for the better part of a year. Being that he told the story in a fashion as unnecessarily long as the holy garment he produced, Sans had plenty of time to get lost in his observations.

_* not only is her diction good, she’s a pro at small talk. someone of class, or used to appearing so. after that first eyeblink, she's seemed real at ease with us. normally humans at least find the bones offputting._ _not to mention that she can follow little bro’s crazy trains of thought, so she's no slouch at lateral thinking, which, among other things, gives me the feeling that her education isn't just a facade. what's more is that coat is good material, like something i saw the doc wear once, but there's a torn pocket someone restitched by hand. the stitches are uneven, maybe hers maybe someone she knows, but probably not mended professionally.  
_

The human, meanwhile, listened to Paps' entire sordid tale, nodding and gasping attentively in the appropriate places until they reached the Step Back Inn and chose a table a little apart from other patrons. A monster with broad, flat horns like a moose's brought them a pot of hot water with tea and promised a plate of fresh croquet rolls to follow. This place was nicer than their usual tavern down the way and Papyrus had chosen it specifically to impress her.

“well, now that you're here, we thought we should take a moment and explain to ya exactly what... what it's all about before you get too settled in. so tell me, human, is this your first time in a monster town?”

She shook her head and finished resetting her hatpin into the ribbon, placing it on her carpetbag in the empty fourth chair where it would be out of the way. Her hair was as matte and brown as her eyes, crisply pinned on the crown of her head, and just as reluctant to reveal her inner thoughts.

* _damn. when did i get sloppy at reading faces? i imagine she’d be a beast at the blackjack table._

“have you been on a ranch before?” he tried again.

“No, this is my first time in the… country.” Immediately, Sans considered what possible word she didn’t say. Disputed territories? Backwater boonies? Again, her smooth face, bright with rosy cheeks, could have belonged to a porcelain doll for all the secrets it showed.

"OH, THE HUMBLE CITY OF EBBOTTON!" exclaimed Papyrus, completely losing his restraint. "DID YOU EVER MEET BURGERPANTS? HE WORKED IN THE MONSTER RESTAURANT THERE. THE NEW ONE, NOT THE CAFE."

"Um, no," she said, wincing at the strength of his voice. "I don't think so. I was just a secretary until recently.”

“i’m afraid there ain’t much cause for typin’ and answerin’ phones in this line of work. it’s a lot of early mornin’ chorin’ and late-night herdin’,” said Sans, smoothly redirecting his brother with a wink.

"Chucking Bales and Humping Pails!" hooted Papyrus, enthusiastically, but without making the teacups rattle on their saucers this time.

"givin' guff and takin' scuff."

"Riding High and Laying Low!"

"troughin' and sloughin' and puttin' nails in your coffin'."

“OF COURSE, we’re not expecting you to jump right in all at once, are we, Sans? We both want you to feel comfortable.” Papyrus elbowed him in the shoulder, nervously rubbing his leather work gloves together. “Ahem... Do you know how to cook?”

She acknowledged his brother's courtesy with another smile, allowing Sans to notice her straight, white teeth. “Enough to get by.”

“Splendid! I love cooking!”

"have ya' ever been hitched before?"

"SANS!"

"It's ok, Mr. Serif," the human intervened before Papyrus could turn his scolding tone into a full-blown lecture. "This is actually more like the kind of question I was expecting to answer." She tilted her head, causing a lock of hair to fall from its place. Her quick, brown eyes looked at each monster, silently apologizing for her discourtesy in delaying their satisfaction, and then she removed her gloves. "No, I have never been married before."

* _short, uneven fingernails… rounded after the fact with a lady’s scissors… pinprick scars from a sewing needle... and the ragged evidence of new calluses on her tender fingertips. she’s a working girl, or at least she was until she got into the wedding racket. makes a fella wonder why she stopped. my first instinct told me this isn't the kind of gal who'd risen from the gutters - this lady was going somewhere - but now i think that was true until suddenly, it wasn't.  
_

“i hope it wasn’t offputting to receive a letter from the both of us,” said the quieter skeleton, pulling out a cigar case from his pocket and beginning to fuss with preparing it. “we almost didn’t say anything, figuring a human gal would have to be crazy to consider shackin' up with a monster in the first place, much less two.”

By now, Sans observed that she was the sort of soul who preferred to think deeply on a plane of their own existence, sitting politely at the table while her mind was far away. Her hands changed their minds, discussing which thumb should be on top and whether her fingers should lace together or fold until she took a deep breath that pressed against the boning of her corset and fully lifted her gaze to them.

“No,” she said looking more at ease for his concern. “There was another girl at the boarding house who told me it wasn’t uncommon for a pair of men to write and say they would decide the groom _after_ meeting their prospective wife.” An odd shadow passed over her face but without further information, Sans couldn't tell which part of her answer could stir such acheful memories and she did not volunteer any. "If you would allow me to take the next turn make an inquiry, I suppose I would like to know - what exactly will you be expecting me to do?"

Papyrus looked to his big brother.

"in light of the upcoming vote restricting the independence of possession of monsters, it seems highly probable that the ranch might soon be... be legislated away from us. the ranch, well the land and the critters on it are the whole of our capital, our entire life's worth and we thought okay, i thought," he amended himself at a tart little glare from Papyrus, "that we'd need to bring someone on who'd be willing to keep it away from the bank and run it with us. especially someone who could stay around the house while we're out on the cattle drive."

Her eyebrow quirks. “It almost sounds like you’d do better hiring a human farmhand instead. Or maybe a maid.”

Papyrus’ brow creases, a remarkable feat for bone. “No, not a farmhand, like a mere employee!”

"'course not," said Sans, striking a match. "guess i wouldn't say 'no' if'n you decided to wear a maid's pinafore around the house, though."

“SANS!!” Papyrus shrieked, deafeningly astonished by his sibling's persistent vulgarity but as the tenor screeches blurred into a trailsong of torment, another sound caught Sans's attention.

You were _giggling_. The cheeky little smile which had eluded Sans' understanding for nearly an hour now had bloomed into a peal of mirth, clear and vibrant as the bells on a dandy hackney carriage. Papyrus glared at his brother’s triumphant grin and then at you, modestly hiding your last few chuckles behind your fingertips, then composed himself and tried again.

“What my brother means to say is that the ranch is our home. A mate or even a sister would join us in that feeling of togetherness and become someone we could count on in good times and bad!”

"Of course, of course." Her eyes still sparkled after the humor was finished - mischievous and bright. “I’m teasing.” After which, her demeanor changed, hands resettling one atop the other. “But that does bring us to the thick of it and well, I’d rather be forward again, if I may. What are your expectations regarding… romantic affection? A-and children.”

“nothing more than you are prepared to give,” answered Sans, promptly, secretly admiring of her forthrightness. He laid one hand flat on the table, examining a hole in the wrist of his flannel sleeve, through which his bleach-white bone was visible. “it's true that the spousal property laws are the main reason for choosing a human magazine for our advertisement and without speakin' for my kin, i consider myself to be a monster with average male kinds of needs. you could choose to be with either of us or if we really hit it off, even both of us.”

With a little clatter of china, she set down her teacup and looked around the parlor with wide eyes. “Are you proposing _bigamy,_ Mr. Serif?”

“It would be big of all of us!” said Papyrus, much too loudly.

Sans shook his head and struck another match to reignite the tip of his cigar. “don’t expect to understand monster marriage comin' in with human expectations. it’s not unusual to be loved by more than one soul and our relationships reflect that. we also understand if you don’t particularly cotton to either one of us. thing is, darlin', the physical part of the relationship isn't the element of mating that will keep us on that land so one way or another, this arrangement ends in a wedding.”

“And… children?”

"Bundles of Joy to pass down the Legacy!"

"a surprise benefit who can inherit the deed to the place." He blew out a cloud of smoke, hazy blue-grey tendrils that floated up to the ceiling and dissipated around the hanging lamp. Trails of it curled around the flames, sparking different colors when they touched the foreign flames. "we'd be banking on the legality of their human sides. again, none of the sexually _intimate_ parts are a requirement for us to think of you in... in that way. as a wife."

"But it's possible?"

“not only is it possible, ma’am, but it’s entirely the parent’s choice, so we could skip the fuss of those little sponges and caps.”

It was vulgar talk, he knew, and Papyrus elbowed him in the ribs for it but Sans was too intently watching her face, looking for the microscopic hints of the feelings behind her manners. Her mouth quirked down, a fraction of a second, then one hand clasped the other and she looked again at each of their faces. No more of a reaction than it took to decide not to order the chef special of the day. Extraordinary. Sans was aware that many human women were nervous regarding the business of procreation without exactly being sure why himself. Was hers an uncommon reaction?

Her thoughtful eyes looked between them both while tracing the edge of her brooch with a lacy fingertip. When she’d satisfied herself with looking, she said, “I see. It looks like I’ll have a lot of things to think about.”

_* just about exactly the answer i wanted to hear._

He wouldn’t have trusted any gal who could immediately sign on to a double marriage for the purposes of expressly circumventing the law so her caution, far from giving offense in his mind, put a point or two back in her column. "that's mighty fine. we have you put up in a room here tonight so's you can have an evening to yourself, think it over, relax and sleep well. tomorrow, we'll show ya' around town and if you're still amenable to the whole notion, then we'll take ya on out to the ranch. we'll be there for a while, so it's important to get a hold of everythin' we'll need."

That seemed to surprise her more than anything else they'd discussed so far. "Tomorrow... then what if I'm not amenable?"

Sans glanced at Papyrus, who nodded. Once more from his breast pocket, Sans pulled out a piece of paper this one a thin strip about the width of his thumb. He put it on the table and slid it towards the human. "then, you get on the train back to ebbotton with no more obligation to us and you're free to try and find another jack-booted romeo on the range."

"And if you like us, then next month we’ll be back to perform the ceremony!”

At that, her eyes flashed. Quickly, she covered her surprise by patting her hair, checking a 'loose' curl back into its bun. Sans similarly pretended he didn't notice and checked his pocket watch. “we can meet downstairs tomorrow morning to chat about it some more and go out together. round about noon?”

"Noon. Absolutely," she said, somewhat distantly, obviously filling up with questions, but despite this, they all sensed the end of the conversation in their bleary eyes and politely hidden yawns. The human stood and saw them to the door.

The sun had set behind the pretty facades of the shops on main street when they departed. Each skeleton took his hat, tipping it to their human friend (?) before donning them, and left quite politely. Sans indicated that they would be staying in town but not in the same establishment, so she shook their hands and bid them goodnight. Rather, she shook Sans’ hand and gave Papyrus her fingers to performatively kiss as in the train station. At the end of the sidewalk, she evenstayed to wave to them. 

Once they were out of sight, turned and slowly ascended the stairs. She turned the key in its lock and latched the door behind her. The lovely straw hat with the rose-pink ribbon landed on the side table and her dirty, lacey gloves followed suit. Then, the human woman, pretty of face and average of stature, turned her eyes to the wall of the room her monster beaus had given her and cried.


	2. A Shelf of Books

You got your habit of early rising from your mother, you suppose. A kind woman with a harsh tongue, she perpetually rose before the sun to fetch the day’s wash from the great house just before your father left and then took it all back before supper. Your father, a factory man who was also no stranger to hard labor, helped her kept a roof over themselves and their two children as best they could while he quietly died of Bread Lung. It was sad but difficult to grieve for a person you'd only seen a few minutes every day. She had been so pleased when you passed the typing course, your mother. She had hoped you wouldn’t have to suffer like her - cracked hands, ruddy face, living in rattling, drafty houses.

Having fallen to sleep directly after crying gave you a headache, so you pulled yourself from the too-soft feather bed and fetched some fresh water from the pitcher in the washroom before the pounding became too acute. This hotel did not yet have running water but it did feature human-style water closets. It made you wonder what other rumors lacked teeth. You looked at your ruddy face in the mirror, then splashed some water on yourself and brushed out your night-braid. Perhaps you could find something to replace a missing pair of stockings or underpinnings.

Fortunately, the skeleton brothers had mentioned visiting a store today and you had departed from Ebbotton so suddenly you hadn’t had the presence of mind to throw more than a few things together. Grimacing into the corners of your bag this morning, it was obvious a few things were missing. You'd neglected to bring toothpaste, vaseline, or even a second house dress. Your set of crisply starched office clothes lay folded loosely on top and you set them aside. Yesterday, you'd covered the inappropriately narrow skirt and fitted sleeves with your bulkiest coat, nervous of appearing too unwifely. It seemed amusing now. You put on your other dress, then, modest brown with long sleeves appropriate for every formal occasion; church, funerals, interviews, and now, selecting a husband. It matched your... everything. With a glance at the rising sun, you decided that your toilette was over before it had really begun and picked up your handbag and hat, sliding on your gloves before you opened the room door.

"Good Morning!" said the voice of the younger skeleton from the doorway of the hotel as soon as you had descended. "I hope you're as excited to see the town as we are!" You already had on your receptionist-face and therefore accepted his hand for another theatrical kiss with appropriate grace. He and his brother wore the same clothes as yesterday, though an effort had been made to knock off the worst of the trail dust.

"Of course. And good morning to you, Mr. Serif. Mr. Serif, good morning. Did you both sleep well?"

“like the dead," Sans answered, also pressing his teeth to your knuckles. His voice was gravelly in the morning. "that is a pretty brooch.”

You touched the edge of it, a round cameo edged in polished gold bearing the delicately carved, bone-white profile image of a woman on a rosy pink background. Though it was one of your few valuables, you wore it often. “Thank you. It used to belong to my mother.”

“Were you close?” Papyrus asked while his older sibling stared, indecently examining the detail. You imagined sometimes when a shadow fell across the serene face, it seemed a little like her flesh disappeared. 

“Mmm,” you said, affirmatively, “For a long time. I sketched out a few things I thought we could make to eat together. Do you have these things already? It’s just a few spices.”

"Wowiee! Some of these look Fancy!" he exclaimed, looking over the list as the three of you left the hotel. "Did she teach you how to cook?”

“Not really," you answered, evasively. "I learned later, here and there. What’s this?”

“AHA! The Post Office! I love writing letters even though I rarely get replies. We have a nice, big typewriter that has the loudest keys so that when I’m writing, it feels as though the recipient can already hear and eagerly anticipate their mail.”

“That sounds like a lovely idea. Who do you write to, your family?”

“Sometimes I answer the advice columns!”

"yeah, _letter_ homes and gardens."

They came soon upon the General Store. The inside was eggshell white wooden walls and rows upon rows of modestly stocked shelves. Tools and burlap sacks of seed and grain seemed to make up a great deal of the inventory but as you follow the brothers to the long, polished counter, you see that other grocery items can be found. A pair of Rabbit monsters ran the place, both with short, soft fur in shades of blue, both recognizably lagomorphic with their long ears. You aren't surprised, such monsters could be seen in the streets of Ebbotton from time to time, though usually only down by the courthouse. 

Papyrus sweeps his had from his head and introduces you proudly. “This is our new human friend!”

"Welcome," said the taller Rabbit, with the tenor of a male. "My name's Stan an that's my sister Bunny."

“Pleased to meetcha,” said the rabbit monster. Her ears quirked unevenly, much like you would slant your eyebrows. “These boys have been lookin’ forward to your visit, let me tell ya.”

"Is that so?" you lift an eyebrow. "Good things I hope."

"No doubt. We're happy the boys are settling."

Papyrus’s skull flushed, a sight to behold, but Sans only winked. “nothin’ wrong with finding’ a buckle buddy.”

While you decided how you felt about strangers knowing your business, you skipped over Sans' inappropriate mischief and reminded Papyrus of the things on your list which fell under 'comestibles'. He latched onto the topic happily and then took himself and his brother down the way to Stan's part of the counter to begin gesturing effusively at jars on the wall behind. Their attention, for the moment, was diverted.

“And how about you?” said Bunny, leaning across the counter, sucking on a candy. You aren’t yet familiar enough with monsters to make a guess as to her age, but she seemed too old to be working the store with that level of casual attitude. You tell yourself monster ways are different than yours and put on a nice face.

“Well, I just gave Mr. Serif my cooking list, I think--”

Bunny chuckled without hiding it behind her paw. “ _Mr._ Serif?” she repeated. Monsters, you'd noticed, were less formal than expected.

“Mr. Serif the younger, yes,” you insisted. “Well, I’m embarrassed to admit it but I seem to have arrived without some, ah, personal essentials. I was hoping you had human shampoo? Or perhaps some fabric?” 

“Sure, I’ve got a little stock like that,” she said, wiggling her nose affirmatively. She pulled out 10 or 12 swatches on a ring and you looked through the colors, mostly browns or blues. Nothing wrong with blue, of course, a fine color for practical wear but somewhere along the way you noticed that many, many people chose to wear blue. Your eyes flick to the short monster, bartering with Stan over seed packets, nearly clad head-to-toe in the very color. Why the reluctance to address them by name, you wondered. After the wedding, surely you wouldn't continue to use their surname, either one as a brother or husband. Or... _husbands_. Papyrus catches your eye and waves, shaking you from your thought and you set down the ring of swatches quickly.

“This one looks nice."

Bunny grinned at you as though she knew what kind of wild thought crossed your mind, then gestured down the aisle towards a little table of pots and pencils. “Great choice. Take a sec and look around. I’ll get your fabric and see what I’ve got for more interesting stuff in the back.”

Sadly, you did not find quite what you're looking for but the small selection of soaps and salts is more than made up for by a shelf of pink, red, and purple pulp fiction novels spilling from the shelf. Curiously, you picked an especially lurid pink romance novel, One Mettaton to Win, and study the cover. One monster - more of an imitation of a human, made from polished wooden limbs, hefty metal bolts, and vacuum tubes clad in dinner wear - dipped another, fish-shaped monster in a loose evening gown, holding her scandalously against his (?) body. When you scanned the blurb on the back, it read in the same vein as human penny dreadfuls and the way the artist painted the water droplets on the Fish monster's scales made it clear that this scene was every bit as titillating as the covers featuring a pair of humans. Your curiosity is only further piqued when you realize that you have only picked up the first book in the series. This same automatonic monster looked capable of dipping several kinds of dance partners, of various shapes, sizes, and - to your growing interest - genders. You couldn't remember seeing such variety in Ebbotton's bookshop; their vast shelves held only a few, restrained examples of steamy gentlemen hastily throwing aside one another's collars and ties and not much else. In the end, you spent far too long trying to decide whether to purchase one or not and, realizing that the clerk was watching you struggle, felt such a wave of nerves that you set it right back down.

“Worried about bunking with a coupla bachelors, huh?” At once, you look alarmed to have been so transparent but she laughed, high and chittering, and reassured you. “Don’t worry about it. Produce like your meat and veg isn’t hard to come by out there but you can’t make your own…” she pulled out a hefty mason jar, topped with a colorful square of fabric and full to the brim with unmistakable brown drops, “Cocoa nibs.”

That was tempting. Chocolate was so indulgent but you also saw the price tag. "I don't think so. Just the cloth and these couple of soaps, please."

“Sorry you didn't find something in the book rack. Good stuff is hard to come by,” she said, sympathetically. “Except for those wastes of outhouse paper, ‘course. Iffin’ you’d like something with more teeth to read, Miss Toriel has lots of things at the schoolhouse the older kids like. Plus, she’s a great gal.”

“OOH!" exclaimed Papyrus, holding a large paper sack, "Are we visiting Headmistress Toriel down in the brain barn?"

"better than her husband next door in the soul shack."

Her husband? Hadn't Bunny just called her 'Miss'? The vibrant parade of Mettaton's paper lovers dances through your mind. “Do monsters not use the title ‘Mrs.’?”

“Absolutely we do! We use Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. and Mx. and Xir and Miss and They and We and The-couple-formerly-known-as--”

A pair of charming, red-brick buildings perched on a gentle rise, looked like a set of children's toys. To the architectural eye, it was obvious that the one-room schoolhouse was built at the same time as the church, standing guard at the opposite end of the village from the train station. Their matching, peaked roofs are tiled with the same kind of darkly colored clay from this region and share decorative accents right down to the golden triangles prevalent in the stained glass and checky-patterned curtains. They, along with the general store and the post office, were the founding buildings of the township and it was one of the reasons. The yard was quiet save for a pair of children clad in stripes. The rest of the swings and seesaws waited patiently for their children to come on Monday. Papyrus pokes his head inside and called to a large, white-furred monster sitting at a desk.

“Good Morning, Miss Toriel! We bring you a studious scholar of sewing seeking something superior to savor!” He rattled, pleased with himself.

Miss Toriel was a curvy, feminine monster draped flatteringly with a lavender shawl over a modestly cut dress a much deeper shade of purple. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles hung from a chain around her neck, bouncing against the polished buttons all down the front, and when she looked up, you realize the subtlety of the color contrasts brings out the yellow of her eyes. “Oh my, what a truly terrific tongue twister! Come on in, I’m just finishing up with these slates.”

Sans doffed his hat and sat in one of the students' desks in front. “i thought ya had upperclassmen for that kind of grunt work now, toriel. don’ tell me kids these days don’ know how to clap a pair of erasers worth a halfpenny.”

“Perhaps they simply had less opportunity to practice than you!” She smiled, revealing blunt teeth. “Sans, it is good to see you. I hope we will not have another incident regarding inappropriate alliterations with the Drake siblings?”

“not today, darlin’, we’re givin’ this little gal the grand _gal_ lery tour.” Sans’ bright eyes slid to you and he gave you a roguish wink.

Toriel stood at once, beaming widely, and rushed around the desk to take your hands in both of hers. “Greetings!” she said, squeezing your fingers warmly through the gloves. You saw now that her fur was stiffer and a little curled like wool. “I am Miss Toriel Dreemurr and I am responsible for teaching all the children and children of the soul here at the school but please do not feel the need to stand on formality. We are all students in the halls of learning!” 

“Hallways, stairways, ceiling, and roof!” Papyrus stamped his foot and did a little twirl.

You inclined your head. “The ‘highest’ aspirations, you could say.”

“Hoo-hoo!” she laughed “How clever.” Her giggle reminded you of a goat, complete with wiggling ears. Perhaps your first impression of a sheep was not too far off the mark and you feel pleased that you gauged your audience so well. She smoothed the front of her gown and reset, still light with humor. "How may I help you, my child?"

Sans piped up from the front row. “well, tori, the truth is she’s lookin for a little librio-love to keep her through the long nights. something with a little more _spine_ than the five ‘n dime.” He'd crossed his feet on the next desk over, stretching his hand behind his head.

“A literatista, hoo-hoo!” laughed the gentle giant, sweeping you all towards the bookshelf. “Let’s see what we can find.”

You wish your schoolmarm had been so thoughtful, rearranging the desks to keep the children appropriately challenged. She was interested in authors you know and liked to hear about the characters you preferred. Papyrus clearly adored her and even Sans became so easy and charming with her, losing some of his rough manners. If they are so comfortable with one another, and she isn’t married, it makes you wonder if she weren’t still married whet he and Miss Toriel wouldn’t be together. You shake your head. Such thoughts only pave the way to sadness. You accept her recommendations and enjoy the sound of her enormous mechanical stamp on the inside covers. When it's time to go, she offers you a few other books as well, more informative fare, including sewing primers and a guide on home gardening and canning.

“Please do not hesitate to come back at any time, even if you do not wish to check out a book.”

“Thank you. You’re too kind,” you say, meaning it, but also pleased to leave so many thoughts behind.

But then the trio came outside and there was another enormous, white-wooled monster, striking enough to give you pause. Quickly, though, you noticed the pair of golden ram’s horns curling around his long ears. He lays aside his purple stole, edged in yellow embroidery, and tips a watering can over the daisies surrounding the white clapboard church. Did Toriel have horns? You struggle to remember but already this goat monster has noticed you and is clearly turning to greet you with a large, friendly smile. Just as soon as you recover yourself, you notice the priest’s collar around his neck. 

“Howdy! You must be new in New Home, welcome welcome! We’re just pleased as punch to have you. You can call me Asgore or Father or, heck, maybe even just Pop!” You shake arms with his paw as well, a little hesitantly.

“father. good morning,” said Sans. His jaw works as though he’d like to have said more but refrained and not due to an overabundance of politeness.

“Thank you, Father,” you answer, determined not to let down your mother’s manners. “Your garden is lovely.”

Clearly that was the right thing to say. "Oho! Do you think so?" Beside you, Sans rolls his eyes but Asgore beams and dashes away to cut you a bright, yellow blossom. “Growing them is a specialty of mine, much more of a talent than reading from the moldy old lore book every week. These are a special variety, well suited to hardy growing climates, and when harvested before opening of the bud can be made into a tea whose properties--”

"always lookin' to give a sermon, eh father?" said Sans, cutting him off. As before, he looked like he would have said more but pointedly nodded his head towards you as though he'd done you a favor.

Well, the skeleton might have a problem, but this gentile, gentle giant had done you no wrong so far. “It looks very festive," you said.

Asgore beams. “I hope so! After all, I’m sure you’ll want everything to be prepared for your event.”

“Event?” you said, thoughtlessly.

Asgore looks between the three of them, smiling. “Your wedding, of course! We shall have a whole church’s worth by then.”

_The wedding, of course._ It would be in a month. For a moment, you forgot how to speak.

“It will be the most joyous celebration of all!” shouted Papyrus, stepping in to cover your brief lapse in composure. Needless to say, while you fumbled your way through the conversation well enough, your thoughts had been snagged. At the end, when Father Asgore shook your arm and promised you all the flowers he could grow, he saw another person traveling by the hill and left to greet them. You thought of his wife in the next building, sharing his land and his townspeople, and yet who had chosen to live separately, without the honorific of marriage.

Sans and Papyrus’ eyes were upon you.

“Forgive me. I was… woolgathering. What did you just say?”

Papyrus shook his head. “I said, I’m extra sorry now that we didn’t have a picture to share with you! It’s a hobby that monsters and humans share to commemorate special times and places!”

“and people,” added Sans, gazing into the street.

“That’s all right, really. I didn’t have one to send back anyway. I haven’t had my photograph taken since, goodness, probably my baptism.”

Comically, Papyrus claps a hand to his cheekbone with such alarm that he knocks off his own hat. “WHAT? You don’t have a whole crate of letters from date mates begging for a snap?”

She giggled, a little awkwardly, and shook her head. “Goodness, no.”

“UNACCEPTABLE!”

“in that case, it might be just about the right time to stop in here.” He offered the human his arm, which she took, and escorted her across the threshold of the very next storefront.

DAGUERROTYPES

Still or Spirited

Proofed while you wait!

“‘Still or Spirited’” you read. “What does that mean?” Sans only winked again and knocked on the counter to summon the clerk.

The feathered photographer supplied tools to fix fur, clean scales, and polish bones but not so much in the way of grooming for humans. The taller brother rubbed the polishing cloths across his cheeks and brows with exuberance, followed by a thorough check of his buttons and laces. The shorter was more casual, merely unbuttoning and rebuttoning his coat, which snagged your attention the worst so far.

They looked _strong_. Both skeletons, most likely through magic, had solid forms to fill their shirts which seemed not to follow the curves of their bones, especially without stomachs full of organs. You'd have expected to see the shirts go slack at the edge of their ribs but both If you didn't know they were skeletons, you would be able to point out muscle groups and suggest how many dozens of pounds each could lift. Soon, thankfully, the photographer squawked at you to gather around a faded, velvet armchair.

"Go ahead and sit first, miss. Gentlemonsters, arrange yourselves beside her, thank you."

You sit between them, patting down what was now your best dress and trying not to feel unprepared. Papyrus was so tall that to get in the frame, the photographer asked him to kneel. He carefully placed his arm on the chair beside you, clearly trying to appear natural without touching you in any way but he looked nervous enough to sweat bullets. Gently, you bumped his shoulder to smile at him so he could relax before the last subject came to your other side. Sans finally decided to unbutton the suit jacket and leaned on the back of the armchair, hooking his thumb into his pocket to reveal a daring edge of suspenders beneath.

Though Sans stared dead ahead, he could only focus on you, as he had been trying not to do all day. The pink color of your lips such a subtle thing but it made your mouth look so tempting he couldn't help but imagine what you would taste like. He can hardly keep his eyes to himself and the photographer has to get his attention twice. The entire 15 seconds, he is only feeling the warmth of your skin through the shoulder of your dress, spreading between his knucklebones. He's a no-good rascal for sure, making up such fantasies about a woman he'd known for less than a day, imaging what it would feel like to hold you, to stroke your skin, and to his shame, that was simply the most decent of his skull's private, cabaret notions.

"Aaaaaand, breathe. Good job, now I'll let this settle into the solution for a minute."

Sans cornered you before the prints were finished, drawing you a little away from Papyrus hovering over the photographer.

“listen, darlin’, there's somethin' i wanna tell you." He thrusts both hands into pockets and shrugs towards the window. He was having a difficult time meeting your eye, but you waited and he found the words. "i know today was a lot for ya and it's a lot to be thrown in the deep end, no matter what father foot-in-mouth says. we’re in town so little it made sense to plan ahead and it wasn’t meant as any kind of implication-- aw geez, i'm fuckin' this up."

Despite yourself, you laugh at the swear. It's charming to see this quick-thinking cowpoke struggle to come up with the right words. He, at least, doesn't take it poorly.

"truth be told, i can only mostly speak for myself but i'm reasonably sure Paps feels the same… i’d rather you made the choice to stay because it was something that you want to do instead of something… you havfta do.”

Your heart hammers. If only he knew... "And what about you? Does this feel like something that you 'havfta' do?"

“Thank you, friends. You’re all finished. Do you wish to see?”

They did. One by one, the ducked under the dark cloth and peered into the plates, sparkling with purple magic, and you discern the difference between a still photograph and a spirited one. The figures moved, though not greatly. It is you, seated in the old armchair Papyrus's tiny copy grinned and occasionally tapped his boot against the chair leg, and despite his propriety, he seemed to lean in towards you and his brother. His usual, vibrant yellow and orange made him appear to glow. Sans stood just behind you, trying not to sneak a look down every few seconds and failing. Occasionally he would shrug and - nearly too quickly to discern - threw out a trademark wink. As for you? You saw a look in your eye that you hadn't seen in the mirror this morning.

And right then, you knew. It was as simple as that. “Misters Serif? I would like to come home with you.”

Sans eyelights looked directly into yours, really seeing you. “that's mighty fine.”


	3. A Faded Blue Bonnet

In an uncovered wagon along the Windy River.

_Sans has been pretending to nap since about five minutes outside of New Home. It's safer in the back, lying in the creaky, uncovered wagon, slumped between two sacks of feed with his arms comfortably tucked behind his head. There is no pressure on a sleeping man to help Papyrus stir the conversation or decorate his misgivings behind another stony smile. Somewhere along the way, he acquired a frondy grass of some kind and when he bothered to speak, it bobbed between his grinning teeth in a charmingly rural manner. Was it wheat? Barley? Fescue? It seemed to change each time you glanced back at him but you didn’t know enough about plants of the plains to point it out, to his smug amusement._

_“see somethin’ you like s-wheat heart? You can barley keep your eyes off me.”_

_And though you chuckled behind your hand, the joke did its work and you closed your eyes to him, straight-backed and forward-facing as Paps. You didn’t ask what was on his mind, though your frown said it bothered you. There were a lot of things you didn’t say._

_Is that why he couldn’t read your soul?_

_Maybe Paps could. Maybe that's why his little brother’s whole being glowed, ecstatic to show off their home to a stranger who would barely tell them her middle name. Sans wasn’t proud of many things he'd done up until now but his deliverance on the promise of Papyrus’ little slice of heaven was probably the second-best. He gazed out across the wide-open space, the peaks of craggy mountains that wouldn’t even begin to lift their skirts for hundreds of miles, and felt inwardly content knowing there was only land, earth, and water to walk for days and days and days. He grew accustomed to the lowing of the beetle-cows in the evening and the chirping crickoppers through the night, perfect for an insomniac desirous of gazing for hours at the stars away from the gas lamps of the cities and their knocking lamplighters. He hadn’t expected it but this place had suited him better than anywhere else._

_And then there was you._

_From his pocket, he pulled out a flask and helped himself to a scosche of whiskey. Maybe it was unfair to judge a gal he’d met right about twenty-four hours ago but… heck, maybe he’d just gotten tired of hopin’ the way forward would ever get any easier and just by happenstance, a perfect answer to their prayers fell in their laps. Well, Mr. Sans Something Serif didn’t believe in perfect answers._

_Sans took another swig from the flask just as Paps’ eye flicked back and caught him. He shrugged at his babysitter's disapproving expression but still, he hid the next sip better, waiting until you'd spotted a green and gold flock of ducks rising into the afternoon sun and pulled Papyrus's attention away_ _. It wasn't the only skeleton's attention you pulled. Your hair caught the sun’s rays in a certain way and, ah! your brown curls escaped your faded bonnet, throwing out a shining ripple of color across the nape of your neck and - not for the first time today - he became stuck, captivated by how differently the sun looked across every surface of yours, hair and flesh, cloth and lace. Presently, he imagined quite a lot more of your former clad in quite a lot less of the latter, which would be easy to shred with the sharp tip of a bony finger and... well, don’t blame a man for liking what he sees._

_It wasn't that monster ladies left him feeling bonely. Their mother, of course, had been a damn fine skelady and while it’s awkward for a man to admit noticing his mother’s inherent sensuality it felt less accurate to deny her character, as often as she dressed to please their father. Perhaps for this, Sans decided that he was destined to crave the opposite of her type - voluptuous souls with searing appetites, unbothered by cosmetics and bare limbs. The painted tarts at Muffet’s French Bakery knew his preferences plenty well enough, and why not when whoring continued not to carry the same shameful taboo among monsters the way it did for humans. He took many slices of that particular punishment pie.  
_

_Furthermore, he didn’t feel ashamed to admit that he preferred to be the one to go into town during the calving season when the brothers couldn’t afford to leave the herd at the same time, but before the endless onset of seasonal responsibilities, Sans had always managed to find time to catch an extra show. In his skull’s eye, he called up a fantasy of red lips, probably stained with carmine, and snappy snort skirts barely covering powered white legs. The cloying smell of crushed roses reminded him of the smell of their skin, shimmering with sweat from dancing, and the contrast of their pink tongues panting like little cats in heat over their adorably round teeth. For a monster not looking to bond, humans' obsession with physical pleasure gave him the vigor to make them mewl all night long._

_He snorts. At least they were honest about what they wanted._

_Truth be told, that was another joy he had in choosing a human for their purposes was the reduced likelihood that their family name would spark recognition of their father. After the Monster Gold Rush, the fortunes of the Serif men had soared with the outpouring of attention and courtship from companies and manufacturers looking to lock down the land rights of the new savages with cleverly worded agreements and handshakes. It all looked shiney but i_ _t hit too closely to another story the monsters had heard so they had said ‘no,’ and no_ _doubt a great number of their current predicaments had incited from that insulting introduction._

_Soon after, the townsmonsters found themselves fighting a battle on all fronts: water rights, equitable wholesale pricing, deeds to their land. Even traders who had considered joining the supply chain became cockshy and backed out of nearly-signed contracts, crippling blows to the tailor shop. The train had to cut back to two stops a week and a few luckier families with connections in more tolerant territories read the writing on the walls and got out, taking a lot of Miss Tori's class with them. The abandoned houses looked emptier than the graveyard._

_He knew exactly why. He’d given up any right to interfere when he and his little bro had stepped out on dear ol' Dad. This chunk of dirt they worked and the clothes on their backs were everything they had to start with and he’d damn his own soul if he let anything separate them from what was theirs, even you. Did you really want to help?_

_He emptied his first flask darkly, listening to your quiet giggle at Papyrus' joke.  
_

“--It sounds complicated,” you said. “How does he feel about it?”

“You could ask him yourself,” said the driver, casting a look towards the back of the wagon, “If he were not so soundly asleep!”

“m’not asleep, bro.”

“YOU COULD HAVE FOOLED ME! I HEARD YOU SAWING LOGS BACK THERE!”

“aw, don’t get all bent outta shape. ’m just logging in my sleep quota, ain’t nothing to shake a stick at, ya know.”

“SANS!!”

**You giggled at their banter, unthreatened by their contentious closeness. It is a good sign and Papyrus feels comfortable turning back to the road and the mules.**

**Typically, Papyrus was very good at reading souls, situations, and social cues though it appeared otherwise by design. His… loudness was a cultivated expression of having made the decision to live a life free from guile and deception long, long ago. Even now, when he thought deeply about it, Papyrus believed it was more harmful to hide the truth than expose it, even if the personal pain seemed overwhelming. Anything was better than hiding forever.**

**As expected, this choice had made some things in his life easier and some things harder. He never had to worry about remembering what had happened in the past, good or bad. No one wondered where they stood in his graces and as a consequence of honest practice, it was extremely difficult for others to pull any sort of wool over his eyes. Papyrus was a monster anyone could trust to behave as he said he would and it spoke equally highly of him that he wanted to behave well.** **He didn’t lie, of course, but he also didn’t hide his feelings. Never developed a poker face. Couldn’t keep a secret. The best he could cope with trying not to out himself in a fib was sudden, enthusiastic changes of subject, and those who knew him long enough described the habit as quirky, deceptive or not. They did not know what anxiety the mask of geniality hid, only his brother - the skeleton who raised him.  
**

**And now? Now there was to be another person who could possibly maybe one day in the future learn to see through the facade. If you were clever and compassionate, BOTH HIGH STANDARDS YOU SEEMED TO EXCEED WITH EXCELLENCE, then it would only be a matter of time before you discovered his real fear. Deeper than his wish that the town could remain safe or that Sans wouldn’t pick fights at church and greater than the desire that he didn’t have to stoop through every doorway. Mostly, especially today, he wished more than almost anything else that he actually wanted to get married.**

**He likes you, of** **_course_ ** **he does. You’re so lovely! He admired your gleaming smile at Toriel’s schoolhouse while you pulled out books on exciting subjects and the precise way you handled the various goods in the store with Bunny, catting like old friends. You didn’t even recoil from a particularly gloppy monster on the sidewalk, merely pinching the fold of your skirt as you bobbed around Mrs. Janice and then wished her a good day. Everything he learned and saw of you made him want to learn and see more! Though he, like Sans, couldn’t yet perceive what aspect your soul might be, Papyrus hardly felt like it was sporting to guess when you'd hidden it so. You would reveal more when you felt ready; when you trusted them to take care.  
**

**But... he had also seen how you cringed when Sans turned his bitterness upon Father Asgore.**

**Your soul was hurting. It was so obvious he didn’t need to check you, much less bring himself to ask what made your voice so heavy. It might make his own soul break too loudly and then you would ask what made him cry and then he wouldn’t be able to hide his rudeness and he would tell you everything! All day, as the mules and he had a race against the sun they couldn’t possibly win, Papyrus kept his eyes between CinAmon and NutMeg’s ears and tried not to give himself away. When he happened to glance at your face, it was only long enough to pretend he didn’t see the tightness in the corners of your eyes.**

**Would Sans scare you? The older Serif might think he was being discreet, zapping down the street from brothels to meet him upon less suspicious corners but Papyrus knew far too much about the strength of his brother’s passion and his reputation amongst those who would know best. His older brother would never mean to make Papyrus feel inadequate but it’s hard to feel like any monster’s preferential choice when their eyes were drawn to one and not the other, time and again. He learned not to expect dancing partners when the Boss with legendary stamina was available and SURE Paps knew that to the others, he seems too much like a youngin’ just out of their stripes but he wasn’t blind… or deaf. Some blow-by-blow commentators hadn't pulled their punches out of earshot.  
**

**You inquired about something, something charming about the weather, but his ears only heard the click of Sans' flask lid against its rim, not the answer that tumbled from his mouth. It turned out to be a list of every kind of cloud he knew, along with what conditions they likely signified. No doubt you’d never witnessed a tornado yourself and recognizing the change of pressure might be an essential piece of wisdom one day but all too soon, he squirms, noticing you didn't take to this topic overlong. Even your manners can’t hide the spark in your eyes when you spotted something new and he could hardly blame you for feeling restless. He didn't wish to listen to himself today and a pair of ground squirrels scampering through the sage grass was far more pleasant and he lets the subject drop.  
**

**Papyrus turned his eye when Sans drank to ‘calm his nerves’. It made him distant and short, less like the brother who spent hours on horseback playing ‘i spy’, less like the savior who took them from the city and brought them to the freedom they now enjoyed, and less like the companion he’d been in the wee, dark hours when all they’d had was one another. Could you sense his brother’s pain even with your blunted, human senses? You didn’t rise to his bait. You didn’t feel slighted by his crudeness. If Sans could bear to remove his cranium from his sacrum, he would realize LIKE HIMSELF that you were a uniquely talented human and someone he could spend time debating facts and logic.  
**

**When he felt like running away, he’d remember how lucky he felt never to be alone, like Sans before him, and recommitted to never let him go through that again. How long had you been alone? You didn't deserve it, either.  
**

**The pounding hooves of a family of gyftrot brought him back to the moment, sprinting away from the noise of the wagon. Their eyes gleam, a herald of the coming dusk and the turn towards home.  
**

Above the three, still visible in the fading twilight, a tall wooden gate bore a sign with two, crossed bones artistically cut from a plate of metal.

“Here we are! Welcome to the Lazybones Ranch.”

A lifetime ago, if it were the end of a long day you’d have filled the kettle and lit the kerosene lamp, then collapsed into your tiny cot barely twenty minutes later. That little apartment had been your pride and joy. Sure, it was a tiny, ill-lit room at the end of a second-floor corridor near the building’s coal stacks and the landlord took one look at your soft face and charged you twice but it had been _yours._

You see the house from quite a long ways away, the only bump on the wide floodplain for miles. Trees are as sparse as hills, clumped obviously along the bank of a river that cut a winding, lazy trail. In the wind of riding, you'd procured your weatherbeaten bonnet to help secure the flyaway hairs, laughing with Papyrus about their tangling in your collar. It shielded your vision outside the safe fence of buildings, blessedly hiding the terrifying space of the open prairie. It felt dizzyingly high, clear air as easy to see through as a crystal glass of virgin water, almost as though you could lose your footing and float away into the blue, endless sky. Probably sensing your nerves, Papyrus engaged you with conversation nearly the entire way.

The depth of his knowledge is impressive. He speaks about practical things, stories about how to raise the cows for milking and the steers for studding, when chickens like to peck and when they roost. He knows every cut of meat that could be gotten from human and magical creatures, how to package them in brown paper, and which knots to tie to prevent leakage. The vegetable garden is no mystery to him, either, only a wheel that paralleled the seasonal calendar. You begin to wonder if he remembers every lesson he ever learned in school.

While he talked, you idly watch the mule’s ears flicker their quiet language. They aren’t bothered by the driver’s volume, in fact, it seems more appropriate here in the wind and clattering dirt road than anywhere hemmed in by brick and mortar. You had tried to respond multiple times but, hampered by flesh and lungs, your voice couldn’t be heard above the road noise and so you contented yourself to nod or shake your head while Papyrus filled the ‘silence’. Your ears feel full of his facts and the rhythm of the wheels in the ruts.

You climbed down from the wagon, stiff-backed and jangle-teethed. How the beefless boys did it, you don’t know but even with a bustle tucked underneath your rump, your backside was pounded sore. Papyrus handed you down from the front seat, needing to balance you quite a lot.

“Sans and I will be sharing my room for now because we cleaned out his for you to use. Please make yourself as comfortable as possible. Are you hungry?”

You were not. Well, you probably _were_ but such a wave of fatigue swept through your body, you felt sure you would faint before you could even lift a finger to pour water. Instead, you pressed a hand to your forehead and told him you felt a headache, intending to soothe but if anything, that worried him more. 

“OH DEAR! I hope you did not catch a human cold! I hear the germs can attack your breathing apparatus and it swells up.” He pressed his glove to your forehead, then seemed embarrassed by the reflex and snatched his hand back, rubbing it awkwardly. “You go inside and lie down right away and I will bring you a hot cup of tea with lemon.”

“Mmm, that sounds nice.” You swallow thickly and smooth your hair, feeling crusty road dust in your locks. Self-consciously aware that all of your toiletries are out of reach at the back of the wagon with Sans, you stepped up a wide, wrap-around porch and open the front door. There is no electrical switch here, of course, but a kerosene lamp and matches are thoughtfully provided so you can create some light and take in the front room.

A key feature of ranch houses was the large central dining area, filled by a long table intended to seat up to a dozen farmhands a meal. With only the two brothers, however, the 12-foot table has been taken up by a variety of bite-sized projects. There was a puzzle at one end, half-grown plants at the corner, several books in crooked piles. To your eye, it is amusing that the table is so full and chaotic while maintaining strict lines of delineation. In fact, much of the house was cluttered in a similar manner. 800 projects begun, 0 finished. To begin to untangle the possibilities is overwhelming enough to induce further headache, so you step away.

You are drawn to the fireplace at the end of the kitchen, a sturdy brick column in the otherwise wooden structure. In the peaked roof at the center of the home, Papyrus looked almost normally proportioned. His jaunty hat hung now on a peg by the door, almost as high as you could reach. You may need to locate a step stool to access the shelves at his eye level, but the mantle was something you could view without craning.

“Who is this?" you said, picking up a framed picture of two small skeletons posed around a toy horse.

“OH! Those are Sans and I as babybones. Can you see the resemblance?”

“What an _adorable_ sailor outfit.”

“Yes! Sans always looked the most dapper.” You smiled and Papyrus got that itch to keep it going again. He springs to his feet and pulls another few pictures from the walls. "Look here!"

"You were in the local band?"

"Indeed! We could give you a repeat performance if you like!" You both looked through a few more, observing the tidy rooms and variety of clothes the young monsters possessed. It was interesting to imagine what they might have chosen to be in such different setting now but your eyes are drooping. The faces and ages begin to blur together until, suddenly --

"Who is that??" you exclaim, pointing to the last photograph. There are four figures, a young Sans and Papyrus like the others, and a somber skeleton in a dark dress with muttonchop sleeves but it's the last you are pointing to, a tall monster with flesh stretched tightly over an imposingly broad-shouldered frame who was clad in a respectable suit.

“Who, that? That is Dr. W. D. Gaster - the finest scientist and statesman in the Whole Wild West and also our Father! This was the last picture of our family all together because the next year--” At a curious _whud_ sound, Papyrus looked around. “Human? HUMAN are you alright?”

“don’ worry, i got her. went down like a sack of taters, for sure.” Sans stepped through the front door, eye illuminated with the magic that supported her head and neck now.

“She must be Exhausted!”

“no spuds about it.” You’d fainted clean away, safely stopped from bashing your head on the table by Sans’ quick eye. He felt heavy with guilt, himself. He’d consciously avoided engaging all day long and would likely do so again tomorrow but you - you had thrown yourself fully into every challenge from the moment they’d met you. His blue magic lifted you as though on a mythical Persian rug. “i’ll put her in bed, bro. and don’ worry about bringin’ in the groceries either. you did plenty already.”

“All right. Good night, Sans.”

“‘night, bro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my friend Deb for her help. I am pun-illiterate.
> 
> Also, thank you, readers. I'm enjoying bringing you my sordid tale as much as some of you have shared this nonsense like STI's. Throw me a comment and I'll get back to you all with new content soon.
> 
> Come scream at me on Tumblr but take care, I frequently have Opinions. [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darkindigo](url)


	4. A Noisy Typerwriter

You wake slowly, lulled gently to stir by quiet clucking, closeby. It’s a soothing sound, enough to press you heavy head back into the pillows, deep and soft. The homespun sheets are woven from hardy thread but finely done and their warmth envelops you with a musky, earthy scent. What was the animal that gave its wool to make these bedlinens? In a state of total relaxation, you twitch the covers just over your nose and breathe deeply, comfortable enough to make any caterpillar jealous. A cocoon, alive with the scent of a smokey campfire, and softer than the hotel’s by far, oh fanciful princess, do you dream of an exotic spice forest? You giggle at yourself and your girlish imaginings but...

Wait.

You don’t know this bed.

Eyes wide open, you flung the blankets away from your face and with a thrill of alarm you spotted… a cup of tea. Herbal, upon further investigation, and with a slice of something perched on the lip. You sit up, allowing the covers to fall away, and suppose that Papyrus must have made good on his promise and left it here for you despite your untimely slumber. Though cold and a little claggy from oversteepage, it’s curiously sweetened with salted honey and instantly clears the taste of sleep from your tongue. You hum with satisfaction and then it’s gone in another sip, replaced with the vigor to rise.

This is Sans’s room, you remember, and given what very little you know of the monster, it looks like you expected. Plainly and sparsely furnished, there is only the bed of your occupancy, the chair beside upon which your empty cup sits, and a desk with a latched trunk shoved underneath it. The empty southern corner is stacked high with boxes, glasses and bottles, books wrapped in paper, socks, plates of old food, and every jacket he probably owns. In fact, without a wardrobe or bookshelf, his other belongings overwhelm the paltry sticks of furniture, and much is spilt on the floor. Most likely, this jumble was a last-minute attempt at providing a habitable human space but despite evidence of a robust attempt, in your heart, you feel it falls short.

Perhaps, like some men, Sans had a difficult time seeing himself as 'home and hearth' person, someone who had to pick out something like matching curtains, for example. Yet, at the same time, his bed is large and set upon a handsome hardwood frame. The rug, a thick blue and purple weave over the split-log floor, is plush (and dare you mention the sheets again with an empty teacup?) but sure as the earth turns, you have _some_ kind of job to do today so, bravely, you swing out of bed and plant your toes on the rug. It was crunchy but you fetched your carpet bag anyway, glancing out the window as you do out at a healthy flock of… chickens? Some kind of poultry, anyway, though no chicken you’d ever met had a beak so long and curved, nor shook sooty embers from their feathers after dusting. Everything here was different than the city, it felt like. 

Well, not everything.

You sigh and set down the boar-bristle brush. Out there you feel another pair of eyes, those of the aloof, suited monster in the photograph, a cold stare you thought you'd left behind. You remembered _that_ little revelation from last night well enough and impulsively, you opened your hand as if to pick up your bag and walk right out the door but as soon as your fingers touched the edge of the desk to stand, you spied the Serifs’ faces in your new picture. The photograph had been slipped into a brass frame and set on the very top of the desk, balanced on a yardstick holding several weights of cord. How their eyes had shone when you’d decided to come home with them, that you were willing to give this unusual family a try. Their joy had filled your heart. They needed you; how could you let them down?

~~You could if it meant seeing _him_ again at the wedding.~~

Ugh! It was enough to make you pitch yourself back on the bed in a fit of frustration. Ultimately, it doesn't feel satisfying and you could only stand up again and restart your braid.

You feel like a fool. When you had been too unwilling to suppose the truth in the quietude of your mind - you tie off your hair and let your shaking hands lie still on your lap - you had told yourself you were being ridiculous and making wild assumptions about skeletons. You hadn't let yourself infer from the shape of Papyrus' face that these monsters would be _related._ You'd told yourself to be _moral_ , for decency’s sake, and keep your ignorant thoughts to yourself. When humans all looked so similar in size and shape, how could you turn an overly critical eye upon two monsters who happened to share some physical characteristics with another they might have known? Surely you hadn’t come all this way to start being a specist now! Who were you, Rev. Dixon? The insults that terrible evangelists shouted from his soapbox on the main street corner were enough to make your skin crawl, using language like 'abomination' and 'infection,' as though the presence of outsiders would pollute the very air they breathed. Vicious codswallop.

Standing, you shake out your underpinnings and pull them on, after which you open the window and hang up yesterday's outerwear to freshen. Then, while pulling out your only other attire, you realize with that in your nerves yesterday, you’d forgotten to buy additional material for stockings. You'd forgotten a few things, actually, though a couple were simply not to be found in Stan and Bunny's shop. Ah well. Perhaps ranch life was an ‘ankles out’ affair. Work attire it would be, then, which felt more fitting. You pull on a long dark skirt and shirtwaist, then fasten on a nice collar with your mother's brooch and voila! Even the most justifiable dour mood can be lifted with one's hair brushed back and the mouth rinsed out. Perhaps something could still be made of the day.

Your reinforced resolve is immediately put to the test outside the trash tornado of Sans’ room. In the light, the entire house has a distinctly ‘bachelor’ design, especially the chaotic sprawl laid along the enormous kitchen table. It dominates the room, pushing sitting furniture, dining chairs, display cases and spare tools into the corners to the extent that you need quite a long moment even to find a place to _sit_. You suppose that with a sizable room like this, it's hard to blame them for choosing to find more space instead of putting things away but for you, it is becoming hard to think. Back in your shoebox of a room, one clothes hangar out of place became a health hazard, so you grew used to keeping a tidy area and this is so much more than you can handle in one go. There seems to be a soil experiment involving bowls of dirt, each with a card covered in important, factual notes beside a stack of books written in an angular, pictographic language you do not speak right alongside alien board games with mismatched pieces. You can't tell where one idea starts and another ends. It is only when you wander into the kitchen that someone throws you a lifeline.

On the counter you find a full plate of flapjacks, safely waiting under a mesh fly-tent. Beside is a pot of syrupy berries and a note. The typeset is in all square capitals, easily translating his intense tenore.

_GOOD MORNING, DEAR HUMAN! I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL! SANS AND I HAVE TO GO OUT EXTRA EARLY TODAY TO MAKE UP FOR THE WONDERFUL TIME WE SPENT WITH YOU IN TOWN, SO BY THE TIME YOU WAKE UP, WE WILL BE OUT ALREADY. NORMALLY, THERE WOULD BE HOUSE CHORES BUT WE WILL TEACH YOU ALL ABOUT HOW TO DO THEM ANOTHER DAY SO FOR NOW PLEASE ENJOY THESE ‘FRIENDSHIP FLAPJACKS’ AND SETTLE IN! NEVER FEAR, WE WILL RETURN SOON AFTER SUNSET!_

It was sweet and lifted an invisible feeling of pressure from your shoulders and you tuck into your breakfast heartily. The fluffy griddle cakes are made from a dark grain similar to buckwheat and provides a thick taste for the taste, sweet berries to cut through. Soon, you're ready to get going and it seems obvious that more than a touch of cleaning is in order. After you’d tidied after yourself and emptied the basin of dishes to heat water for the new ones, your eyes turn to the task of hunting down dirty dishes and laundry, especially from the table. At least getting those things out of the way would help you see more of what method there could be to the madness. What? You were curious to learn more about them.

There was a lot, and a great deal of time is spent trying to extricate knives and forks from binders and boxes but after failing to keep a precise amount of distilled fruit mash from splattering on a deck of cards, you decide that things are going to get moved whether they like it or not. That is much easier, proving effective to rotate items on and off the less wobbly of two armchairs and you can wipe the dust and grime from the surface of the table as well, revealing another expertly made piece. It was great until your elbow caught an untidy pile of papers and they scattered across the floor, only partially stuck together.

You swear and kneel to gather them up. You hadn’t meant to, of course, but in the course of trying to reorder them - the kind of thing you did a hundred times a day back in the city without paying much attention - you notice a little typo. Nothing serious, just a little extra ‘e’ at the end of a word, but you decide to locate a little white paint to correct it. Scanning your way along the shelves, you located more forms stuffed haphazardly around books about law and science and brought them back with the others. Soon, you see a real problem.

As you spread them out, sorting forms with like forms, you began to gather a rudimentary image of the ranch’s operation and just how tight of a ship they were running. Just the numbers of the livestock moved in and out of the valley said a great deal about the skeleton brothers’ assets and, judging by the uneven typing, scratch-outs, and handwritten corrections, it was a substantial investment. That being said, it was done with a less than current knowledge of the bureaucratic processes involved; 'all the eggs in one basket' just about covered the issue, and though you were neither realtor nor lawyer this kind of bookkeeping is very familiar to you. Such a volume of these went through the Judge’s office every week you could probably fill them out by memory and it seems like a waste not to put your skills to use but as you look around at all the things you had done so far, you hesitate.

It doesn't.... it doesn't yet feel like your house. Intellectually, you know that it will, eventually, but it feels indelicate, somehow, to start by creating such a big impression in their landscape so quickly. You could put the papers down, go into Sans' room and think no more on it, perhaps dive into the salacious novella Bunny had slipped into your purchases, but would you be able to relax? Not likely.

You look back at the armchair, where you stashed a typewriter earlier. It would be faster and more professional looking for you to just... just start this hot mess all over. The typewriter is in a tooled brown leather carrying case, which looks frequently used. Well, according to the leatherworker this was a 'typerwriter' which seemed like a curious misspelling for a craftsman of writing machinery but once you wrangle it out it looks enough like what you're used to, save for the blank keycaps. After a little hunting, you locate a packet of office paper and clear of one end of the table to set up.

**The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,** you type, admiring the roundness of the typeset. This script was unfamiliar, almost modern with its rounded letter ends. **Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.** **Cozy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job a pen.**

This can't be the same machine that Papyrus used to type your note this morning but finding no other, it's more than sufficient for your purposes. The blank keycaps are unusually smooth and all of the letters press evenly into the page. You skip a few lines and type, **Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, diam nonnumy eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolor,** just for the satisfaction of feeling the letters stamp themselves on the white surface, then take out your test page and crumple it up. Time to stretch. You load in a new piece of paper and start at the top of the stack.

If you had to guess, the Serif's filing system was "important papers go here" without much more concern for a breakdown of purpose. Even though you'd just dumped them on the floor, there was no general sense of order. House titles, livestock sales, and all manner of legal and civil correspondences were all neighbors in this pile, creating a real informational soup. Particularly gnarly is a several inch thick folder containing multiple applications through various chapters for 'settlement grants'. Many denials were rubberbanded together, returned with citations often because a piece of information was missing or inaccurate but, you notice with a frown, all seemed to be mistakes that were correctable in less than five minutes if the filing clerk was worth their salt. You flip through a few packets stamped heartily with red letters DENY or VOID on the front and begin to feel a larger and more sinister reason behind the difficulty they were having acquiring new resources.

Well, no more! You clack away on the typerwriter, reproducing the fractured data with the kind of fervor seen only by a little boy lining up his marbles for the perfect shot. Systemic prejudice was hard to pinpoint and even harder to circumvent but _typos_ had a clear fix and that's what you find satisfying about the work. Making the numbers line up feels like a game and there are many, many numbers to line up in this stack.

One task led to another and another and then the sun was peeking in through the top of the windows to let you know the day had almost entirely slipped by. Papyrus hadn’t been too specific with when they’d return so you leapt to your feet and got to it. True, you weren’t a fabulous cook, but anyone could cut meat and veg and bake it with potato and turnip mash. Not only that, but it will be easy to make a lot of food at once with the monsters’ oversized pans. Soon the house snapping with the sound of cooking and all your little worries seem to sail away with the steam.

xXx

Papyrus and Sugarcube canter on and off the driveway, trying to wait for Sans while feeling only too eager to reach the stable and shuck saddle. The beetle-cattle were mighty lonely after their absence and both ranch bros feel totally spent of actions from the extra challenge of cantankerously herding them towards the creek. They missed the Dogs' help keeping the peace but truth be told, Papyrus likes feeling that he and his brother are all they need to overcome the challenge. His bones ache pleasantly and it’s especially a relief because, free from the terrible obligation of social nicety, Sans had been almost enjoyable all day. He was nice, chatted with the steer like an old pal, and sang inappropriate songs by swapping out the indecent lyrics with rhyming ones to make him upset. It had almost been, dare he think it, like the old days.

Sugarcube slows, sensing his melancholy and surreptitiously, he sneaks a peek back at his older brother, who is too observant. Quick as a blink, he hides the movement of his hand away from his pocket. Papyrus grimaces. Was there an actual bottom to that flask?

He turns back in disgust but finds it’s easy to focus on the house when there are lights in the window, telling him that someone is waiting for them. His soul swells.

“HELLOOOOO THE HOME!” he calls. It echos far beyond the homestead, clear on to the foothills and back, faintly. "Go Ahead, Sans. It Will Fill The Human With Anticipation!"

"naw, i can't hold a candle to your cattle call. i'd rather you take the reins," he quips, then drops his own and stretches his arms over his skull. MC, used to this kind of behavior from her owner, follows in step behind Sugarcube with a snort.

"Sans, We Talked About This!"

"you're right," he says with a wink. "you really rule the roost."

Papyrus shrugs and sets the pace the rest of the way back, accepting his brother's laziness. He becomes quieter after deflecting, and the dampened feeling persists while they unsaddle the horses in their stalls, then take off jackets and boots in the mudroom. Papyrus knows that he is uncomfortable and nervous and wants to help but can't think of anything to say that would cheer him.

"Hey," he said, "We Did Good Out There. It's Going To Be Okay."

"yeah." He looked at Sans and a little of today's ease came back into his posture. "if you say so."

"I Do! After You, Sans!" he says, falsely enthusiastic and opened the door into the house, feeling like he shouldn't give them the opportunity to lollygag.

The human did not waste her time in their absence. Papyrus marvels at the difference struck by how the entire room is lightened by the rearrangement of the table to one side. The colors seem brighter when there aren't piles of dusty figurines and last winter's blankets on every surface and as well, he sees that when the armchairs are angled away from one another, the occupants' legs would be less likely to get in a tangle. He is impressed and decides that they probably should have done more to care for the house until this point. If only to avoid the impression that they lived as slovenly cave-monsters.

"Hey! Welcome back, you two. Dinner is almost ready." She looks well-rested, bright with color on her skin, and attentively minding a pot on the stove. Somewhere, she located an apron of his and put it on, though she rolled it up at the waist quite a bit to fit.

“It Smells Delicious!” Papyrus approaches right behind the human and plants a toothy kiss right to the top of her head. "MUAH!" Between their heights, he doesn’t need to do more than lean straight overtop to see what she is stirring, a sauce made of red vegetables he recognizes from jars in their cabinets. Good, someone is going to use their old ingredients.

“Thanks! I wasn’t ready to brave the chickens’ nest yet, so unfortunately I couldn’t make noodles. Instead, I found some crushed garlic and spread it on a few slices of bread and then I toasted them on your griddle.”

Papyrus inhales deeply. “The Aroma Is So Powerful! Did You Use The Herbs From The Store?”

“No! That’s actually just a little oil. I didn’t want to use them first without you. Here, try some.” Then, their little human knocks off most of the sauce from the spoon and holds it temptingly up above her head. Predictably, Papyrus leans in too fast and a droplet falls, splashing on her face.

“OH NO!” Quickly, he brushes it off her cheek, clearly worried about the delicacy of human skin until she shakes her head.

“I hardly noticed," she reassures him, brown eyes crinkled with a smile. "Don’t keep me in suspense! Does it taste alright?”

“WOWIE!” He gestures towards the door. “SANS, COME AND TRY.”

But Sans isn't by the door anymore. Bypassing the kitchen entirely, he is ambling slowly around the living room.

“what’s happened to all this?” he asks, from the other side of the room. He hasn’t shucked off his outerwear in the mudroom, so to those at the stove, his bulky figure obscures exactly what he’s referring to. Both feel uneasy about his stillness and, sharing a look, Papyrus takes the spoon and you approach Sans.

"Well, as I was cleaning, I had to make a couple of decisions about where to set things and... I also made a few guesses about which parts belonged with which game," she said. "I think I kept everything together but please let me know if there's something I missed."

"wow, kid. you really went hog-wild, there." He rubs the back of his skull. "didn't know what kinda stampede we were gettin' ourselves into."

"Pardon?" she says, which made Sans glance at her face, eyebrows knit with confusion. He realizes that whatever he might be thinking, at this time of night and this far into his cups, it might not come out right.

"'s nothin," he says instead, lightening his tone. "just gonna take a bit to _herd_ all the pieces back together. o. k. co- _pal_?" Not his best pun, maybe, but the moment passes.

"Yes," she smiles, a little timidly, "Of course."

Papyrus subtly turns up the heat and calls to her. “IT’S BUBBLING OVER!”

“Oop, be right there!” She leaves Sans to his griping and returns to the pot, gaze downcast. Of course, it's nothing for her to put the food to sorts. Her persistence is admirable but, close enough to duck under his arm again, he can see that it's not as easy as she is making it seem. Her eyes are shinier than before, her cheeks flushed with emotion. He leaves the dinner to her and sets his sights on a certain numbskull.

“This is completely unacceptable,” whispers Papyrus, approaching his brother under the pretext of looking at the forms she wrote. “It is her first day.”

"what? you're okay with this?" He holds out the box of pieces. Their game of Croak in the Hole couldn't be reconstructed and, probably mistaking the 8-suited monster card deck as two separate entities, had deftly divided their Pineapple and the Poker.

"It is true that it will take a little to get used to one another," he narrows his eyesockets, "but she is our _guest._ I, for one, think she did more good than harm and it would be fun and educational to teach her how to play. Then she would know what pieces to keep together _and_ we could have a third for Rummy."

"well, as exciting as rummy sounds," he says with his mouth, "but she ain't exactly a guest." but as she gestures his face becomes dark, eyelights tight and focused. With 3% more force than necessary, he flips through the playing cards, rubbing his back molars together with a series of soft clicks. When his jaw works like that, Papyrus knows he is monologuing internally, pissantly neglecting to hide his irritation possibly in the knowledge that his soft brother would intervene and smooth things over once again. Sadly, his martyr’s pilgrimage was coming only to a middle.

All three swallow their pride and sit down together at the clear end of the table. The food is good, extremely edible even, and yet the tense mood was not overturned. Though Papyrus made plenty of conversation to fill the table and it is easy to engage him at many turns in reality, the human and he were watching Sans. He contributed to the conversation infrequently, often just a superficial attempt made to bridge the conversation and touched his portion very little. Papyrus is beginning to feel embarrassed for his brother's reluctance.

“Here,” he says, warmly enough to soften the hard edges, “Let Me Clear Up! It’s The Least I Could Do After Such A Fine Italian Meal.”

"Oh, thank you. You're sweet." She handed him her plate. "Hey, I had a question about your typewriter. I've never seen one like it."

"The Typerwriter!"

"It's not a misspelling, then."

"nope," says Sans, having already pushed back from the dining table. "it's part of a line of magical and mechanical hybrids coming out. translates the energy of the user into text."

“That's interesting. I found it with some other things and used it earlier, I hope that's okay. It's got a lovely typeset.” You sweep over, gesturing to the machine still laid out on the table with a new, blank sheet of paper in the roll. "Oh, those two were missing from your files, so I made them up and filled in what information I could find from elsewhere.”

“elsewhere?” He looks over, surprised. ”you wrote these?"

“Mmhmm!” she answers, cheerily. “It wasn’t any bother. Like I said, I was a secretary not that long ago. I used to do this sort of filing all the time. Here, the ones on top are due in the soonest and the ones on the bottom are the least urgent. Don’t worry, I checked through them all. I caught some cross-references that weren't using accurate numbers and then, I just marked a few sections where the handwriting was too hard to read.”

Papyrus blinks, surprised by the unnatural, professional tone of her voice but Sans looks downright thunderstruck. “all? what does that mean?” 

With dread, Papyrus drops the dishes into the soapy water, ready to pull out some entertaining Vegetable Garden facts but he was far too late.

“Well, I didn’t leave the job half done,” you said, with a timbre of pride he admired. “And it was in the main room with the other things. Oh!" you turn, brightly, "These ones are going to be due soon. I put a piece of paper so you could--"

But you don't get any farther. "you went through all of our files!?" he rages, slurring the 's'. “you had no right!"

"Wh--"

“what made you think you could just come in and turn everything upside down? who do you think you are?”

"SANS!"

She blinks, clearly taken aback by his vehemence. “I… I’m…,” but after only a moment's splutter, he sighs and rubs his nasal bridge.

“no, no. i didn't mean it like that. i'm tired and out of sorts." He doesn't meet his brother's furious eye. "the house looks nice. i... i haven't seen it clean like this in ages."

“That Is Hardly An Acceptable Apology,” starts Papyrus, approaching his brother, but Sans held up a hand.

"don’ worry about me, bro, ma’am. i reckon right now, the horses need me to sing them a lullaby or there'll be _hay_ 'll to pay.” He shoves his hands in his trousers and saunters back the way he came, towards the mudroom and the stable beyond. Tightly, he smiles. “don’ wait up.”

This raised the alarm for the tall skeleton, whose jaw dropped open. "You Can't Go Yet! We Haven't Chosen A Social Group Activity."

"sorry, no can do," he grins mirthlessly, pointing at them both with finger pistols, "they'll get night _mares_."

But it isn't received well. His joke sours the taller monster’s face, giving it an unpleasant, sarcastic twist. “Of Course, Brother," Papyrus says, revealing a long-suffering bitterness in the clip of his words. "Whatever You Say.”

Of course, Sans continues his march into exile and Papyrus feels the overwhelming desire to wash his hands of the whole, pointless argument but the human looks from one to the other, face white as a sheet. It isn't just Sans' attitude that has affected her, he sees, for she had flinched away from the sound of his disappointment. Before Sans reaches the step to the mudroom, she actually backs away first fleeing fleetly through the front door.

  
  
_Slam!_

The house is empty behind her, a louder admonishment for their failure than anything they could say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the first chapter with Big Plot Energy, there was a lot to set up and it took me a heck of a time to get all of those ducks in a row aaaaaaaaand if I've done my job right, then it should read flawlessly. It won't, I'm sure, but do you know what it is now? Done. 
> 
> LMK what you think in the comments, heart your faces. ^_^


	5. A Creaky Swing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Hit the first hard speedbump in the story. Setting the scene was easy, now I've got to think about like, characters and themes and shiz. Oi. I may have made Sans a bit more of a dirtbag than I first anticipated but I'm not hating the direction we're going.
> 
> I also reread the last chapter and fixed a few sentence stumps I found. It won't have changed the plot or flavor but it does make me look more like I'm familiar with how my own language works. See y'all soon! ;D

The night shivers around you, shedding jacket and gloves for the rise of heat in your throat. It's everything you have to put one foot in front of the other, preventing the wild horses from fleeing the coop. Or were these penned horses also the wild mustangs that couldn't be broken? Something. You feel too upset to make a game of it.

True to your memory, you come upon a stout iron pole with a handle, halfway up the road; a water-pump. It's a long walk, which lets you stretch out some of your feelings and get a little distance from the ranch house, which feels good. You decide a little water would do you well (ha) and slip off your gloves to tackle the solution. This device is heavy enough for the handle to need both of your hands to grasp and even then, you must jump with your entire weight to screechingly break its unoiled inertia, slopping the frigid column of water. From its spout, a belch of freezing water erupts, soaking your dainty boots. You jump back with a yelp. Still not ready to drown, it turns out.

You couldn’t force yourself to remain there, caught between the brother's barbs of anger. The water cools the flush of embarrassment from your flighty departure. Sans heel-turn change of temperament and Papyrus’ disdainful regard, curling his bony lip just like his father used to do... the dignified monster in the photograph. The wounds from those encounters had hardly healed. You feel the desire to dash all the way back to town, to your little shoebox flat, and pull the covers right over your head. Of course, that would do nothing. You don't even consider walking the enormous distance back along the graveled driveway, certainly not intending to hightail it twenty miles to town in the dark but also not intending to let the tightly-dammed reservoir of tears spill over where any skele could stand and stare. You tuck your little knit shawl between your arms for warmth, regretting not remembering your jacket, and walk a little more, leaving the water pump behind.

Was he trying to scare you away? Is that why he snapped, flashing his magical scowl at you under his brother's arm. The sense that the two didn’t see eye-to-socket on the terms of your employment was tipping past the point of ‘falling-out’ and realizing its potential of becoming out-and-out ‘strife." Would the threat of your presence become a wedge to divide them? That would be unfortunate as they clearly cared for each other deeply and you would be reluctant to tough it out on the hopes that they would get over their feelings. You hadn’t lied when you’d told them about your bride-sister who’d accepted the proposal of a pair of brothers but the reality was that her luck hadn’t been as good as you'd implied. When they’d seen her, those heathens had drawn straws for the privilege of _not_ having to tie her knot. Not that the well-mannered Serifs would do such a thing, you feel relatively certain, but thoughtless cruelty could come in many forms.

Your gaze strays from the homey orange light of the ranchhouse lights, out past the carriageway and gate bearing its crossed bones, until your eyes are thrust upward by the horizon of night-black mountain peaks, craggily blocking the lowest corners of the star-laden sky. A moon like a silver coin lights the topmost tip of every tree, effortlessly creating the kind of glowing canopy Da Vinci would strive to recapture in paintings all his life. Above it all, nothing could compare to the radiance of the swirling constellations twinkling out their heavenly messages in a code astronomers hoped to one day decipher. No interpreter of the heavens, you could pick out a few well-loved shapes - the maid and butterchurn, Heracles fighting the serpent - Still, you almost imagine that you are hanging from Earth’s ceiling, light enough to float away into the dark places between the stars and see what the diorama looks like from God’s side of the box. How lovely would it be to see, apart from it all, outside the vastness of creation.

_crunch_

It appears you have a visitor. A heavy-stepped visitor who does not labor to breathe, despite the length of the walk.

“Good evening, Mr. Serif.”

“evening... ma’am.”

He doesn’t continue right away and you don’t feel the need to hurry him. The sky is plenty to occupy your attention.

“lotsa stars an’ all. beautiful night.”

“So it is.”

More silence, filled with the crickets and the wind in the trees. His toes scratch the gravel. Not his bare toes, probably, but you couldn't detect the nuance in timbre between bone and leather.

“papyrus put the grub in the larder if you think you'll be hungry later."

"Thoughtful. I appreciate it."

"listen," he begins, and at the sudden change in his tone, you decide that you aren't interested in false humility.

“Did Papyrus send you out to apologize?”

“no. yes…? i left before he could get the chance.”

“Ah," you say, looking back towards the horizon. "So, _you_ sent you out to apologize to me."

“bingo. i’m always doin’ stuff like that to me. it’s hard to keep this assh-- uh, knave in _check, mate_.” Almost certainly he winked however your back didn’t notice.

Your lips twist at his flippancy. A pun wouldn’t erase the last hour of frostiness. “Perhaps if you played more defensively you wouldn’t have made such a _rook_ ie mistake."

“the thought had _pawn_ ed on me but i’m startin’ to think that being defensive ain’t the best strategy where you’re concerned, little darlin’, an' that maybe lockin’ yourself in a tower means you can’t see what’s goin’ on outside.”

"Are we still talking about me? Because it sounds like I might not be the only one who feels trapped.”

"ain't no one said trapped," he says too quickly, as a reflex, then just as quickly turns it back around, struck poorly by your words. "everyone in this situation is doin' exactly as they are so inclined unless there's something new that needs to be said?"

"Nothing that concerns what's happening at present." You pull your shawl a little closer. "Although I could say it isn't every little girl's dream to become a wife for hire and it's turning out a little different from what I expected."

“woah now, if you didn’t want the job, you coulda said so yesterday and saved a lot of cartin’ stuff back and forth to town.”

"I didn't say that I didn't want the job."

"then what _are_ ya' sayin'?"

That’s enough. You are done with his condescension, with his hostility and distemperate demeanor. In your opinion, it was time for this gentleman to face some hard truths.

You turn on your heel and face him directly. “I'm sayin' see here, mister, who are you to go _stampeding_ at the first thing that makes you see red? I haven't done a single thing except try and clean up the poor, neglected house we're gonna share and you're over here pitching a fit like I've set your grandmother on fire!”

"havin' a bonfire now, are we?" His skull quirked, like the sharp angle of an insulted eyebrow. “if we're gonna be burning for our sins then why does your pretty little nose end up in such places it doesn’t belong, hm? common sense would tell even a human gal that a man might like to know before she does copyin' his dental records.”

“You left them on the table for anyone to see! The mailman could have done as much.”

“iffin’ the mailman got so far over the threshold, he'd be in more trouble than you are!”

“You're being ridiculous!" you throw your hands down by your side to keep from waving them in exhausting frustration. "Think about it: if we do get married then they’ll become _our_ financial records and what then? Will you lock some new secret behind a forbidden door, Bluebeard? At some point or another, you'll have to decide how far you want to let me in.”

Sans made a rattling, scratchy noise. You don't look closely enough to see how he is making his bones do it.

“You wanna talk about boundaries? Who invited whom into their home, far away at the end of a dirt road without even a telephone for emergencies? You knew how long we would be together out here, three single persons of healthful adult sensibilities, without even another soul nearby to chaperone. Anything could happen! At the very least, did you not think there would be cause for speculation?”

He chuckles and the shadows move strangely about him. “tell me, human. do ya feel unsafe?”

Despite his delivery, it's a fair question and one which requires labored consideration, especially now that you've worked yourself up and he isn't making it easier to remain unbiased. You close your eyes to shut out his aggressive stand and really ask yourself, do you feel unsafe with Mr. Serif? The first answer is easily 'No'. That monster is obviously an upstanding citizen, beloved family member, and successful business owner. He uses safe, well-vetted channels to conduct his affairs and made every attempt to account for error in his initial dealings with you by patiently discussing the terms of your marriage first thing at the hotel. To imagine him behaving in a manner untoward a woman of standing is difficult. But then you ask yourself, "Do I feel safe with _Sans?_ " and you discover that the words have a different flavor.

Many men have multiple facets of themselves and you aren't bothered by the reality. Such an ability to code-switch is a strong indicator of maturity and social facility more than misrepresentation and a skill that you needed to cultivate in yourself to succeed professionally therefore it is not the existence of a separate face behind the mask that you must examine. Rather, you must scrutinize what sort of man Sans the Skeleton is behind the haze of deflective humor and whiskey.

_That_ face is in your mind, staring down from his ridiculous perch on the bench, straining just as much as his earnest sibling to see you arrive with a clutch of droopy flowers in his hands. The face he made watching you choose fabrics by feel, completely fascinated by your senses... Sans the Skeleton, who made room for you in his own bed. You didn't think this monster would harm you, per se, but such a man might have other intentions. Other intentions which he would have made known by now, through body language. Here, tonight, Sans is looking at you with a new face, one beginning to stretch its hostile veneer and reveal the genuine concern beneath - which tells you everything you need to know.

“No,” you answer, though you swallow the sound a little, realizing how long a simple answer took you to find.

He doesn't comment. Sans' cheekbones stretch; an actual smile. "good enough."

"But it's not good planning," you say, changing the mood entirely. Despite your confession of safety, it is not your preference to have any deep conversation about relationships in the cold night air and you are beginning to have a suspicion that one might be in order. "The telephone, I mean."

That catches his interest. “eh?”

"What if a client should like to get a hold of you and inquire as to the health of their investment?" You look over his shoulder, back toward the house. “I mean, in addition to other ideas for the ranch that I’ve been thinking about, I could step in as a sort of human liaison for more squeamish clients. Modern human businesses are able to offer much quicker service with a few technological conveniences and I have a lot of experience... well, in a lot of areas.” You want to say more but he looks more and more squeamish by the second and you falter.

“where’s all of this comin’ from?”

"The way you spoke inside... let's say it made me feel like you weren't a fan of sharing."

"'s not true. paps and i share jus' fine."

“Of course. I actually admire the way you treat each other," you say, rubbing your fingers together, "But didn’t you specifically choose a human to handle exactly these kinds of affairs?”

“well, obviously i wasn’t expectin’ to keep ya in the dark,” he answers, “ it's just... it's just... we ain’t actually married yet.”

“Well that's silly. If I'm doing my job right, we're about to be," you say, feeling the words come out more than hearing yourself properly. Your ears rang with them.

He shrugs, a shifting of thick jacket fabric against whatever pads the space between his frame and his bones.

"Look, Mr. Serif, you said so yourself that you aren't looking for a nanny or a maid. I'm willing to help with all of the legal, human matters that I can and so far to my eye, we have found common ground between the three of us in just a day or two so pray, enlighten me... what is it about this marriage that I don’t get?”

"nothin'," he says, badly hiding the lie. Is it still a lie when everyone can tell?

"Why won't you tell me? Were you expecting something else?"

“lighten up! it’s just marriage, it’s not real or anything!”

Immediately, his expression breaks. He brings up his hands and steps close, already fixing to apologize for his rudeness, but you step back at the same time. You are looking at him now with eyes that see him more closely than any telescope and for once he just wishes you would look away. Nothing could hold your attention more than his scrawny ass right now. “Not real because we’re circumventing the law or not real because…?”

Horrified with himself, he doesn’t even remember how to dress it up. The truth just falls out of his mouth, “...because you’re human.”

“Ah.” Your sigh falls away, too softly to be heard. “I see.” The wind carries away the sound that accompanies and thank God because the glimmer in your eyes alone was enough to break his soul. There was no answer he could give that would assuage the bruise where you believed he had no romantic feelings for you and he curses himself. You almost turn away again but he, determined not to fail again so soon, instantly appears before you with a little _pop_.

You gasp. At the least convenient moment, the wind snatches your shawl from your astonished grip and flings it high above, recklessly sailing towards the gnarled oak's branches. With dismay, you watch it shear closer and closer, certain that the sharp branches will rip the yarn to shreds when suddenly, a moment before its doom, it freezes mid-air, glowing blue. Before God and everyone, it reverses midair and flies straight to Sans’s handses.

Sans then turns to you, eye innocently glowing with unbelievable magic, yet soft and calmly controlled. You do not feel afraid, rather fascinated by its clarity and his obvious skill. His whole expression is visible this way and would be even if there were no moon to light him.

Sheepishly, he approaches, fingering the knotwork of your scarf as though inspecting it for debris. “listen, that came out wrong. why dontcha come with me to the porch and let me talk to ya about it, maybe tell a few jokes to lighten the mood?”

You purse your lips, hiding how shaken and cold you are with a righteously earned guise of suspicion. “I’m beginning to worry that all we shall ever do is have discussions, Mr. Serif.”

“yeah, no, that's on me. i’m just a bonebrain who spends too much time talking to cows and when it comes to a pretty gal with a lotta smarts who can make a good point, i fall apart.” He offers up your outerwear. “c’mon, darlin’, let me try again?”

He seems genuinely remorseful. “Ok. Only if you say you don’t hate me?” you tease, holding out your hand for the shawl but Sans doesn't relinquish it right away. He takes your hand with his own, folding it easily in his palm, and gets close enough that you think he might try and kiss it. At the last moment, he drops to a knee and presses his other hand to his chest.

“check yourself, i'm just a pawn to your queen,” he says, badly affecting a suave tone, "let this mere squire apologize about wantin' to get in your castle."

You recover from your shock and even giggle at yourself; the frosty mood thaws a little. It wasn’t enough to make you forget his words completely but it’s enough for you to accept your shawl and follow him (manual escort politely unaccepted) back towards the house. Still joking, he leads you away from the front door to the side of the house, where swings a wooden porch with a bench large enough for two monsters to sit if they squeezed hip to hip. For the two of you, it is easy to find modesty at opposite ends.

“When you’re ready.”

Sans arranges himself into a casual pose, one foot crossed over a knee but internally, he felt shaken. Papyrus was right again. Even now, you were acting so gentle - ready to go his speed, ready to let him open up first. He was starting to wonder if the early date at the church had been for your benefit after all.

He laughs and pushes the swing with a foot. "i reckon i never expected to be givin' the birds and the bees at this stage..." he jokes, "never really thought about how to start it."

"Well," you smirk, too ready with a comeback, "You could start with a classic, 'When one monster loves another monster very much, they do a special dance...'"

"yeah, yeah," he drawls, deflecting the flusterpation he feels, but almost immediately regrets it. He realizes that he is very curious and would have liked her to continue her little human mating speech. Monster children were told very little about creating new life, mindful that they were all an intentionally fertile species. He came to the information conservatively late, a shrewd decision on the part of his mother who realized that Sans would be unable to keep from sharing the new information with his younger brother and therefore told them apiece. It was the first time the boys chose not to sleep in the same room.

He pushes the swing again and the bolts sigh, a long, quiet groan overhead, echoing the one he doesn't let escape his teeth. "i know a little somethin' about humans an' how ya'll get the job done. some _parts_ of it are recognizable."

You find his euphemisms childishly cute and choose not to interrupt, enjoying how your toes only skim the porch at the very lowest point of the swing. He, meanwhile, hides a sigh of relief in the next groan of the swing, thanking God that you didn't ask why he knew so readily how to fuck a human.

"now i've, uh, never been to a human wedding before," he continues, tugging on his collar a little, "but monsters, well... i've heard some stories about what's possible and monsters, we can't be casual about it. bonding changes you. the longer you're together the more you change, too, and when you actually get hitched, you gotta swear your vows with your soul in your actual hand. not just in front of the monster you love and the priest, but everyone in the whole countryside, who can see that you mean it when you say you're gonna try and love that monster for the rest of your life." He shifts so he can see the kitchen light play across your face. "there's no lyin' when you got your soul out like that - everyone can see just exactly how you mean it. in fact, the witnesses gotta speak up if they see something funny with the vows- if someone isn't committed or someone's not freely consenting, they've gotta step in. it's their duty."

An unpleasant pinch crossed your face, so he pushes the swing again and speaks more soothingly. "it's not a judgment thing. monsters can live a long, long time - we aren't about to come down on someone who is just makin' an honest mistake - but it's important for the community that we take care of each other. breaking a bond is a hard, painful thing. all that change you've had with one another, all the ways a monster's soul has grown around their mate? all that has to all be ripped apart to perform a breaking. some monsters, the ones who're less strong, they don't even survive it. a lot of times, it's easier to remain bonded but choose to live separately."

You swing together while you digest what he's told you. "It sounds like bonding is a lot more performative than a wedding in a lot of ways, even though it sounds very similar in others. I can see how differently you must feel about it, considering how visible and public the entire process is."

"don't get the idea that monsters are prudes," he growls, sliding an arm around your shoulders. "there's plenty of _private_ things about a bonding." That makes your cheeks grow hot, raising the blood to the surface of your delicate skin to signal your inner reaction to privacy with him. A simple blush can't tell him whether you like what you hear or detest it but he _can_ see how strongly you feel. He feels his chest expand coquishly with his next breath, knowing full well which he would prefer.

"Well, sure," you say, a little more quietly for his closeness. "What I meant was, how disappointing it must be to settle for something other than what you expected."

"disappointing sounds harsh," he says. Sans has been enjoying your company like this and every now and again, the moonlight flashes across your hair and makes it glitter in a nice way. Looking right into your big round eyes made it even harder to remember what upset him so badly before.

"There is.... well, there is a lot more trust involved in a wedding, I suppose." At that, he looked as though he might like to interrupt but you continue. "I can't account for every human in the world, and lots of us get married for all kinds of foolish reasons but the truth is, no one really gets married thinking it's going to end in divorce. Not even those ladies in the picture reels who get married to a new oil baron every other year. Every wife is still kind of hoping that she'll be the one he falls hopelessly in love with even as she counts out his money to buy hospitals and mink stoles. The reality is that in a human marriage, you're making a _promise_ and a _bet_ at the same time and neither person can know how it's going to turn out."

You push the swing just with your toe, which makes it wobble unevenly. Sans is stock-still, carefully refraining from gripping your shoulders too hard. You can't determine how he feels when his smile is so frozen but it clearly isn't in a way that he can find humorous. If you had to guess, he is trying to listen.

"My grandparents were together for 60 years. They met when they were fairly young. Well," you smile, tilting your head, "I guess everything we do seems young to you."

He gulps, invisible throat bobbing.

"Anyway, she worked in the local tavern and he was the town mechanic so whenever an appliance would break he would be over to fix it. He found her delightful and she thought he was just the handsomest thing she'd ever seen so they got married, moved halfway across the country, and settled down to it. They raised three children and when they got too old, they came to live with us."

Sans is utterly fascinated by this peek into human life. It's a way into what it looks like when you grow old within your first children's lifetimes.

"She died first. She went very peacefully, in her sleep like you'd want, and we moved all of Grandpa's things so he'd be comfortable on his own but he forgot that she was gone. Don't be alarmed, that happens to old humans sometimes. Over and over, 'where's mommy?' he'd ask and we didn't want to upset him, so we ended up just answering vaguely. 'She's just in the kitchen, daddy,' or, 'She's out in the garden, watching the birds.' He seemed okay enough but he went only about a month later. I guess when you've been together for 60 years, you just don't do without the other person."

With a soft scrape, Sans toes stopped the swing. You turned to face him, which turned your knees as well and bumped into his other leg.

“Mr. Serif, I think that you think you're breaking it to me gently and I think that you think you're protecting me by giving the truth to me in little bits and pieces. It makes me wonder if you think I don’t understand at least some of what I signed up for. Now, I don't know what you expected when someone picked up your job but tonight it almost felt like you were upset that I'm here and in town, it felt a little like you couldn't stop apologizing for bringing me out all this way. Like it's been an inconvenience to me somehow. Well, tough guy, it’s not. I'm a big girl - I tie my own drawers and everything.”

He laughs at himself.

"So, maybe we could agree that we need to give each other a chance? And well if I'm going to ask you to get comfortable talking about your best part maybe I should get comfortable doing the same." You lean back, resting your head against his arm. "Do you want to know why I answered an advertisement for a monster husband?"

Oh yes, he very much did but his teeth click shut. It makes his bones tremble to know that she guessed his burning-most question right out the gate. “‘s alright.”

“It is, is it?”

He swallows, flexing an invisible throat in a way that ground his molars together softly. "yeah, it is. i mean, we've all got a past, right?"

"I'm not ashamed of the decisions that brought me out here," you say, “but if you want to make it even, then why don't you tell me about how you and your brother ended up at the last train stop on the map? That kind of family sundering doesn’t happen out of nowhere, does it?”

He wishes more deeply than ever that he could _check_ to see whether you meant what you said but he looks into your eyes, confidently returning his attention, and sees how you lean towards him. Chest to chest, the tension of the moment was stretched to the slowest tempo. A dance that was a test of their patience, admittedly not a strong trait of either. Who dared to cave first, though? To admit that one could be more stubborn, more reasonable when that could be exactly the kind of challenge one longed for?

Sans was quite the tough customer, no greenstripe to such maneuvering and could appreciate your skill. His teeth began to glow, tightly failing to conceal the blue, lingual shape inside. He swore to himself over and over, unable to believe the sensation of their bodies through at least rough layers of cloth could stir his magic like this. This human wasn’t a mage, she couldn’t manipulate his magic! At yet, his sight shimmered with damnable soothsaying that he wanted to see some more of it. More of the effect it was... _he_ was having on your body, on your soul. No, he couldn't see it yet - he realized now how much undue suspicion he laid upon you when he couldn't divine your motives like any other being he met - and it was through no malice on your part. You were only human. Perhaps you didn't even know what it meant to hide your soul so thoroughly that all of monsterkind thought you were up to something sinister. If he were really a man, he could just forgive you for it and plant one right on your red, waiting lips.

"GASP!" you both hear.

Suddenly, you and Sans spring apart just in time to see the kitchen curtain twitch closed. Your cheeks flush, embarrassed that Papyrus should see you both behaving so badly. Your heart is beating faster than a wild mustang, almost louder than the talking to you were giving her. You were a secretary, it's true, who left her respectable job to become a legal, spiritually sanctioned spouse through a legitimate company whose charter bore the seal of the Governor himself - not a word of it a lie! The interviewer might have given the idea that some women who had looser ethics could find themselves with more desirable matches... Not that you’d actually done anything of the sort! Oh, Lord have mercy this porch is warm.

You shake your head to clear your mind and Sans' eyelights flick to your throat, thrilling you again with the sense that he implicitly knows your thoughts. From this angle, his canines looked sharper than before. Is it the light or is it how closely he's leaning? A cloud of his scent, so spicy and strong for a skeleton, washed over you, more saturated with cigar smoke in person than his bedsheets. It's only familiar because you are borrowing his bed, you tell yourself, it's not because of anything inappropriate! But your racing heart doesn't listen. _She_ is gripped by the kind of dangerous excitement that she hasn't felt since before the troubles when she hadn't known how short decisions have long consequences. She sees a man that knows what he wants and longs to give it to him. Maybe before, you would have crossed the divide and pressed your lips to his teeth but now she knows to listen when you slow yourself; leaning away when you would rather lean in.

“Everyone has a history, Mr. Serif, but only some of us choose to have a future.”

With some effort, Sans reins in his magic and says, "that's a fine sentiment, darlin'. why don't you go on to bed? i know paps likes to get an early start and he wants to show you around tomorrow." He straightens his jacket and looks up, up and away towards the night sky. "i'll be up a while yet. don' you worry about me."

"Sure thing, Mr. Serif. Good night."

And just like that, you hopped off the swing and he was pushing only his own weight. He watches you go, gazing at the backdoor long after the lamp extinguishes inside. The cold doesn't bother him. The dark doesn't bother him. The lightness of the swing sure did, though. You'd asked what he expected?

_* i was expecting someone i wouldn’t want to mate._


	6. A Barn Dance

Luckily, you fell straight into bed for a good hard sleep because it’s quite early indeed when you rose next. Mr. Serif the younger woke you for morning choring and dressed you in a woolen jacket, floppy yarn cap, and leather gloves. You both laughed at your appearance from the mismatched sizes on your way into the frosty morning.

“You Look Just Like A Scarecrow!"

“Mmmmph,” you groan. “I should have known you would be a morning person.”

“You’re Lucky I Didn’t Use The Trumpet!” says Papyrus. “Right This Way To The Barn Dance, Mrs. Crow!” Squawking, you follow him out to the barn.

Every morning started by tending the cows, whose lack of magical biology was completely supplanted by the sweetness of their temperament, Papyrus explained over steaming tin cups of crunchy coffee. Bovine milk was a necessary component in a great deal of human cooking and also exceptionally good for growing children and baby bones alike, so the skelebros had invested in a small setup to test its viablity. You grew curious at the sidelong glimpse into his past but the walk to the barn was not long enough to indulge. Sure enough, the moment he rolled back the heavy timber door, a quartet of creatures trot forward, their long tongues greeting your hands and shake their bells, accompanied by inquisitive lowing. 

“Here, Girls! Come Meet The Human I Was Telling You About!” he says, once the door is secure again and his hands are free to rub their ears. “She Is Going To Be Part Of The Family, So I Expect You Treat Her Like Such And Make Her Feel Welcome.”

“They certainly are friendly,” you say, almost bowled over by the affection of a particular cow with a white splotch on her nose. “Oh hello, precious,” you say, adopting the sort of voice one reserved for children, “Who are you?”

“Girls! Where Are Your Manners!” He makes a kissing noise through his teeth, an impressive trick without lips, and the quartet back up. obediently sidestep around one another, forming an orderly queue to their milking stalls. “That Is Gouda! She Is The Most Friendly And Is Clearly Volunteering To Help With Your First Milking! Go Ahead And Bring Her To The Stall And Take Off Your Gloves.”

“Wow, you trained them?”

“Of Course!” He beams with pride. “They Love To Learn New Tricks!” He trots between their stalls, securing each cow’s lead to her post, where they placidly begin to chew their alfalfa sprout breakfast. “This Is Camembert, ‘Cammie’ For Short. Oaxaca Here Is Our Oldest And She Is Always Hungry. That One Rubbing Her Hindquarters On The Post Is Brie! ...Brie! Stop It! That’s How The Last Post Came Loose, Remember?” And he has to dash away to correct her.

You giggle at his antics, which clearly thrills him, and he humors you for several more minutes before Cammie bumps his elbow with her head and he turns back to you.

“YES. Yes, Your Turn Is Coming! Let’s Get You Settled First, Human.”

You have seen pictures of milking before but at this moment, seeing the softness of the cows' stomachs and their hard, heavy hooves, your confidence flags. “Isn’t it easy to hurt her?”

“Only If You Pull Her Teats Too Hard But I Have No Fear!” He winks. “You Have A Soft Touch.”

The barn is warm, plenty enough to keep your bare fingers from chilling and the atmosphere only becomes warmer when you perch on the low stool and Papyrus kneels behind you. He shows you what to do, placing his hands over yours to show you the correct amount of pressure to use to coax forth her milk. Presently, he leaves you to finish and goes to tend the others.

“Okay, easy girl,” you murmur, trying not to upset her though Cammie seems not to notice, having found something enjoyable in the trough and given you no more thought. She only swats her own leg with her tail and buries her head further in feed. You scratch her side, pleased by her warmth, and reposition your hands and after a little fumbling, you find the rhythm that produces the streams of milk you desire. Her udders were a little slippery and you had to keep your eyes on your work but soon your mind wandered. Back to your study, in the city.

Your employer had spoken often about his hatred for humans, surrounded by pretty words and obscure court cases. He never tipped his hand, obviously deciding that a stoic exterior was a necessity of his profession. You typed enough of the court documents yourself, clattering away page after page of testimony and questioning, and each time you typed his pronouncement, it was only in his voice, cool as glass.

‘ _Guilty._ ’

Convicting a human was his favorite, only after monsters, his own monsterhood notwithstanding. His courtroom earned its notoriety for harsh sentencing and ‘example’ punishments. According to the newspapers you'd laid on his desk each morning, his bench saw the most hardened, irredeemable reprobates. 

You knew better, didn't you? Typing away every word for the rest of the circuit to hear.

_THE DEFENDANT (crying): Oh, God..._

Cammie shudders and you pause to pat her thigh. It was behind you now. Mostly. 

It was encouraging that your husbands-to-be appeared to dislike their father, fleeing to the very end of the track to avoid a Sunday dinner. With a jolt, you realize that you had typed a few formal letters to these two, thinking of them at the time only as relatives of the Judge and little else. How odd it was to be now hiding from him like this, alongside one another and totally unaware.

You hadn’t chosen to share that fact about yourself yet. In your heart, you knew it couldn’t last forever - even estranged family recognized their imprints on others. Something you said or did would reveal more than a stranger should know and then you’d need to explain why you happened to know the details of so many goings-on in the territory. These monsters weren’t slow, they’d put two and two together and _then_ you’d be on trial for the charge of [sedition]. 

A wet tongue interrupts your uncomfortable thoughts and you look down into a placid pair of dark brown eyes. This little brown cow has a splotch of white in the middle of her nose, which she leans against you the moment your attention is stolen. 

Papyrus smiles proudly at you. Despite his encouragement, he finished with the other three in the times it takes you to complete just one. 

“That was neat. Do you buy them separately from the beef cattle?”

“These Other Three, Yes,” he said, standing from the furthest cow and proceeding to the next. Wow, he was fast. Relieved of their burdens, the cows felt free to stroll back to the hay bales and resume their breakfast. “Gouda Was Special, Though. Her Mother Rejected Her And She Was Starving.”

“Oh,” you say, instantly feeling sorry. Utterly unaware, the subject had wandered back and resumed licking your skirt, disinterested in hay for now. “Does that happen a lot?”

He waffles a hand, clacking his knucklebones softly inside his glove which draws her attention, notable by an ear flick. “It’s Not Rare. Nature Plays With Hard Rules. Usually Another Nursing Cow Will Accept A Rejected Calf But Not With This Girl. None Of The Mamas Made Room For Her, So I Brought Her Here. She’s Been A Good Girl Ever Since.”

“Were you afraid?”

“Of What?”

“Of… not fitting in?”

Papyrus regards you. "Fitting In Is A Matter Of Perspective. Like Yours."

You hum with pleasure, feeling the color rise on your face from his compliment. “Thank you.”

“Of Course. I’m Glad You Fit In Here After All,” he remarks, “Most Humans Wouldn’t, I Think.”

That was odd. He doesn’t criticize humans around you, rarely makes the same snide assertions as Sans, and now, you think, it may not be because he doesn’t have negative opinions. Unlike his brother, from whom tactless thoughts fell left and right, Papyrus Serif might prefer to keep some things private. It wouldn’t surprise you, the latest territory grabs of the States had created a number of sore feelings, but it might feel strange coming from this gentle soul, who just seemed to think the best of everyone. At length, you choose not to comment, respecting his privacy.

“What comes next?”

A great deal. All the denizens of Lazybones were quite meticulously cared for, involving a complicated scheme of diet according to season and supply. Papyrus had quite a lot to say on the subject and he showed her the stacks of feed bags in the loft above the cows -- barley, wheat, corn, beans, stone peas, and more -- which he poured into color-coded hoppers. There was a lot to sort and you were not anywhere near strong enough to lift the bags of feed so you admired some of the machinery that did the sorting. 

“Sans Made Those,” said Papyrus, shaking the last of the millet from its canvas. “The Different Grains Fall Through The Sieves, Which Close When The Weight Of Each Grain Is Correct According To The Input Measurement Here,” he pointed to a lever on the yellow side reading ‘Corn’ which could be turned to 1lb, 2lbs, or 3lbs, “And Then Falls To The Feed Bucket All At Once.” 

“Ah,” you answered, not knowing enough about machinery to comment further. “It looks very complicated.”

“Many Things Look Complicated From The Outside,” he said, with a rakish smile. “Sometimes You Just Have To Look More Closely! Alley-oop!”

Quick as a flash, Papyrus plucked you around the waist and set you upon his broad shoulder. You gasped, the rafters seemed about to knock the bonnet from your head, dumping a winter’s worth of spiders on your head, until he wrapped his arm about your legs like a potato sack and leaned forward so you both were gazing directly into the hopper. True to his word, you beheld a series of mesh plates that guided differently shaped grains, dried kernel corn, seeds, and other feed, through the little pans with gentle vibrations. The hum was intercut with the rattle of hard-shelled sunflower seeds, but otherwise sounded like a pleasant drone. 

You also feed the other livestock, variously laid out in an organized, clockwise circle around the barn. In addition to refreshing the stalls of the Cow Quartet, the horses’ long trough was filled with a steaming mash. There were some mules, a flock of chickens, with whose morning alarm you were already acquainted, half a dozen skittish sheep, and one very pot-bellied pig named Óscar. 

“Óscar Is Better Than A Garbage Can! Anything That We Don’t Use Turns Into His Dinner,” then he leaned closer and said behind a hand, “Which Comes Back Again As Bacon. He Doesn’t Know Yet!”

“Talk about the circle of life,” you remarked.

“Next, We Want To Put In A Watering Aqueduct. Sans Has A Design That Will Keep The Water Perpetually Fresh, But Of Course The Ground Will Freeze Soon And Digging Will Become Difficult.”

Sans’ name again. Is it a deliberate reminder of your disagreement last night or are the brothers’ lives so entwined it is impossible to have a conversation in absentia? You glance up, wincing with the expectation of another harsh stare but Papyrus’s arm was slung around Óscar’s neck, patting his back. He wasn’t even facing you; the stare you’d imagined had been in your mind.

“I wish it wasn’t.”

He shrugs with one shoulder. “Doesn’t Have To Be. There’s Ways Of Solving Hard Problems.”

If you had any doubt what he meant, that comment killed it. Your frustration boils quickly to the surface. “Why does he have a problem with me? I was under the impression… well, the impression that my presence here was mutually beneficial, huh? Then, it’s kiss kiss slap slap every moment! ‘uuuh, welcome home, human but don’t touch anything,’ and, ‘sooo, marriage isn't important but i'm gonna get hot under the collar anyway.'”

“Though Humerous, Your Impression Is Not Terribly Accurate,” he said. Papyrus takes a moment, understanding the question you’re really asking and sets his teeth. Perhaps he had been expecting this all morning.

“Last Year Was The Second Hardest Of Our Lives. We Arrived Last Year And We’ve Been Ranching Ever Since. Just The Two Of Us. Didn’t Know Much About It To Start But We Learned Fast And Made It Through The First Year.”

It’s strange for him to be so indirect. You focus on the vertebrae that make up the back of his neck, square and thick. It’s as difficult to interpret as skin.

“That’s Not New. We’ve Been Close For All My Life. Our Family Wasn’t… They Weren’t…”

“Affectionate?”

“Mmm. Nor Expressive About Emotions.”

You take a breath. It smells of manure and straw, already a more familiar smell than the dusty office ever was.

“Our Mother Died Some Years Ago. Before My First Growth Spurt, When I Was Knee-High. She Used To Sing And Read To Us In The Garden. That Was Even Longer Ago. After She Died, Father Wasn’t The Same,” he said, letting a shadow of regret tinge his voice. “He Wasn’t The Most Nurturing Before But At Least Before, We Could Find Him Outside The Office.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“It Was. Sans Was There For Me, Though. He Made Toys To Distract Me And Read Me Stories He Wrote For Bedtime. Father Didn’t Like Anyone To Play Her Piano But Sans Made A Music Box That Played Her Song And It Helped Me Sleep Through The Night. He Told Me About Her When Father Wouldn’t, When I Started To Forget.”

“You don’t remember your mother?”

He shakes his head, slowly, and when he speaks his voice is unusually hushed. “I remember… being held by bigger bones, skinnier than Sans’. Sitting on a lap with a skirt. Only a few things.”

“I’m so sorry.”

That explained a few things. You’d never had the courage to ask about the skelady in the picture on Judge Gaster’s desk and the good doctor had never spoken about her. Though it made your heart break for the babybones, it made your heart lighten to know that she wasn’t alive when you had been working for him. The same monster came into the dark to check on you was the same one who raised. No doubt empathetic Papyrus would have checked on the lost human had his brother not needed to apologize in the first place, but it was Sans who came. Sans who called you pretty. It shouldn’t affect you so!

“Falling Down Is… so hard.” His shoulders slump. “We could see it happen day by day, even when she tried to look healthier than she felt. It’s like they become a wind-up toy that loses the key. I don’t think Sans likes to talk about it because he remembers her more than I do.” 

"I didn't know."

"OF COURSE NOT!" he says, springboarding off your reserved tone. "How Could You? I Just Hope That When You Decide What Your Place Here Is Going To Look Like, You Don't Let _Fear_ Make The Decision For You."

"Fear. No, indeed."

So every morning, you and Papyrus do a dance with the cows in the barn. Sans Serif takes a long turn minding the cattle so you and Papyrus make food together a couple of times in the evenings. You and Papyrus write letters to people in town and clip the magazines the mailman brings on Saturday. You and Papyrus sew together. Before you know it, a whole week passes and getting up before dawn feels completely natural, as does greeting Sans, fresh from the trail every night, and sitting down to eat together.

Since the night you met in the yard, he has kept his distance. Well, that's just fine. He'd asked for as much from you and, in the grace of your mind, you'd realized it wouldn't be so bad. There were plenty of other things to occupy your time than fussy skeletons. A safe existence could be traded for many others. Someone else was less than satisfied, however.


	7. A King of Spades

Papyrus marked off another day in his journal, closer and closer to the date circled at the end of the month. He dragged a hand down his face and closed the little book, tucking it into a pocket so he didn't have to see it.

They’d stayed out overnight on Saturday, needing the extra time to guide the herd around a tricky bit of canyon and to make sure the slow-witted cattle didn’t also backtrack in confusion. It was a few days of bitter work and their bones ached for it. Paps might have even cracked a rib if not for a quick lasso underfoot. Still, the cows were settled on the far side of the rift now and could be left to their own devices for a bit, long enough for a decent sleep. Well, decent enough for bunking with that 8 mile-legged blanket thief he called a brother. It was enough to disturb a man's rest! _Oh, Papy, let's face it_ \- he and his brother were both doing their fair share of pretending to sleep lately.

The house was warm and bright when they entered, a real comfort, and he felt it begin to soak into his bones immediately. He was still half-expecting to return to dark windows and cold floors, and nearly forgotten who waited for them now.

“Welcome back!” You were pretty as a picture in your apron, with a smile that could melt butter. Since your ‘discussion’ with his brother a few days prior, you had returned to a sensible, friendly demeanor which was a relief, and the long table in the front room had respectfully remained in a state of disgrace.

“smells mighty fine,” he says, sauntering over to you. Papyrus watches his brother like a hawk, badly disguised as filling the kettle for coffee with supper, so Sans greets you with a placid kiss on the cheek to please him. “muah. howdy darlin’?”

Hardly flustered, you waved a stirring spoon and deflected his familiarity with a placid tone. “Oh, go on and take off your boots outside! How were the beefalos?”

"haven't _steered_ me wrong yet." You giggle, which feels nice, almost enough to encourage Sans to tell another one but he doesn’t. Not right away. “an’ how are the tame ones doin’?”

“Jojo the barn cat almost got another chicken! We had to put a bell on him to at least warn the girls when he’s coming.”

“wanna give them a _flock_ ing chance, eh?”

Papyrus almost drops his outdoor coat. “SANS!”

The both of you laugh at Papyrus’ indignation more than Sans’ vulgarity and everyone parts to wash up for supper with the air a little clearer. Papyrus sees your expression in his mind’s eye and compares this evening smile to others. Were you smiling because you were happy to see them or because your hours of silence were at an end? What if it were both? There was a pleased curl to your lips sometimes that he likes. Now, if only your words came as easy as your smile. And then if his brother could keep from chasing it away...

Everyone's good humor had returned somewhat with the pleasant arrival of supper; a hearty vegetable and sausage stew served alongside fist-sized rounds of crusty barley bread. Still warm from the oven, one had only to touch the butter knife to their insides before the smell became overwhelming and half of. Papyrus continued to be impressed by how you could take the few ingredients in their poor garden and transform them into something edible night after night and all without a side of tinned beans! Sans remained lost in his own thoughts for the greater part of dinner, leaving the human and his brother to amuse themselves with conversation, which they did with great aplomb. It seemed that perhaps his earlier assessment had been too hasty, especially observing your spirited debate over which ingredients would constitute a better pie - tomato and cheese or potato and chicken - and before long, some sort of new method of baking had ensnared the both of you deeply.

Sans couldn’t, or didn’t care to, follow a word of it and contented himself with watching the pair of you, unconcerned enough to hold what thoughts he had close to his chest. Internally, Papyrus wishes his brother would make up his mind about whether he liked the human or not. It certainly seems like he does and considering how obviously well-matched they are in character, a romantic connection should be a natural fit and yet his stubborn sibling is obviously experiencing an emotional obstruction about their permanent guest. Their newest friend.

Their future _wife._

“‘s nice to see the two of ya gettin’ along," says Sans to you, "won't feel bothered if i havta stay out late."

Papyrus goggles at himself. He has dropped the conversation long enough that you had already begun to clear up. Guiltily, he clacks his fly-catcher closed and gets up to help.

“I’m so pleased,” you say, smiling as you pick up Sans' plate. It wavers in your hand but then you turn and carry it away."Your princess won't wither in wand'ring castle."

Sans doesn't seem to hear it. “somethin’ on your mind?”

“Oh, nothing important.”

“suits me.”

But it wasn't nothing. You were quoting a book, one of the other scandalous novels Papyrus had shared with you when you'd confessed to accidentally purchasing one yourself. His soul squeezed in his ribs - you'd read it and bothered to remember a piece of it. Sans should ask... he should before you turn around, but alas. Sans becomes self-conscious about having broken your reverie, writ larger than the weather on his face, and backs away from whatever nice thing it was far too late. You shrug and whisk away the rest of the dishes.

“oh, uh, thanks for dinner,” he says hastily over his shoulder. “sure was mighty fine!”

“You’re quite welcome,” you say back, politer than ever and Papyrus cringes on the inside. Here it was, the kind of completely unacceptable exchange that happened a dozen times a day, and just as stiffly.

He tries to salvage the moment and interjects himself. “The Three Of Us Should Do Something Together After Dinner! It Is Desirable For Humans To... To... Ah, Promote Social Bonding Outside Of Encounters!" He looks from one person to the other, knowing how thoroughly he is unable to deceive Sans and dreading what you might be able to divine from his abruptness.

“sure we can do something. what'd ya have in mind?”

He casts about for something to hook your interests when he spots the poor, neglected piano waiting in the corner, covered by blankets and knick-knacks and layers of dust. "How About A Little Music?"

Dolt! Of course that strikes a sour chord. Sans flounders. “oh, er… music’s not. it isn’t really…”

“If he doesn’t want to we don’t have to,” says the human, kindly but with a strange look at Papyrus. The human looks shrewdly at him and Papyrus tries to school his skull into a cool mask of indifference but at the same time, he sees your expression close and he turns a glare at his thoughtless older brother until Sans holds up his hands in defeat. Does she know what he’s playing at? 

“no, no, it’s all good. 'd rather play cards, though,” says Says quickly. “poker’s always easy to play.”

“Gambling? On the Lord’s day? Absolutely not!” You sounded shocked enough but your little smile was back, hopefully earnest enough to spare him an earful later on. Sans heard your tone and instinctively wanted to play with it.

“all right, little lady. doesn’t have to be poker. royal flush like that’ll sweep me away any day of the week."

“Are There Any Good Three Player Games?" Papyrus says, shuffling his sprouts furiously on the plate. "Dead Man Bridge? Old Maid?”

“not unless she changes her mind, i think,” says his incorrigible brother, encouraging another laugh from you. Music enough even without the piano. "she might get a look at these old bones in bed and make a run for it yet!"

"You're trying to put me off, Mr. Serif." Your cheeks color but to his delight you don't back away. If anything, you sit up taller at the table and tap the table with your delicate knuckles. "But... maybe I'll see that bet. I think the Lord can forgive me for just little one."

"not that little, darlin'," he says with a chuckle. Papyrus doesn't even have time to be scandalized before he moves on, smoothly. “okay, then, to keep the big guy happy hows about we play rummy? even i know that one.”

“It’s Settled!!” gasps Paps.

Breakneck speed, they clear off the table. You stack the dishes next to the washbasin neatly, large to small, then pile the silverware on that. It’s very methodical. Sans moves his management piles to the desk in the corner, more haphazardly, leaving Papyrus to wipe down the surface. Done quickly, he locates an ancient set of playing cards in the cabinet beside the hearth.

“Here!” he crows, “I’m Sure These Have Most Of The Cards!”

“Thank you," you say. Your manner has changed, a mirror of Sans'. Your eyes are sharp as eyelights and your lovely waistcoat makes you look an old hand at cards. "Who goes first?”

Ok. Maybe not.

“ain’t it polite for ladies to go first? something about needin’ longer to get ready?”

“You’re very funny, Mr. Serif.”

“you’re right, you’re right, my mistake. it’s the cutest player who goes first.” That doesn’t quite catch her, either, though her wry glance has a quirk of humor in it. Sans throws up his hands. “what? i’m just sweet-talkin’ the dealer. it’s a legitimate strategy.”

“Now, it’s been a while since I’ve played, but I don’t think that’s how you win rummy.”

“don' worry about. got any money?” he teases with an overdramatic wink. “these ‘steaks’ aren’t very high.”

“Oh, haha. I’d say the steaks are well done as they are.”

“ooh, sizzling.”

Sans is showing off again, twinkling his eyes to make the cards dance through the air. He could just shuffle normally but, nooooo - he likes to see the human struggle to refrain from asking about his talents. Papyrus knows his brother better he opens his mouth, but she is too quick.

"Rummy!" she says.

"are ya sure you've never played before?"

"whaddaya think? i got ya a whole bunch of diamonds."

“These diamonds are nothin' but paper, mister. What do you expect me to flash with that?”

"it's like i always say, if you can’t have a good partner, then ya’d better have a great hand.”

Her face is unimpressed. She also doesn’t prefer Sans’ low rent humor. “Bit of a low bar when your partner is a dummy.”

“the queen takes the trick!”

“This is the wrong game for that.”

“wouldn’t be the first time i made a bridge over troubled water.”

You lay down triple face cards, a 30 point steal. "If you rock the boat, get ready to tip over."

“I CAN’T _DEAL_ WITH YOU TWO ANYMORE! NYEH-HEH-HEH!”

They ended up playing for more than an hour, accidentally forgetting the kerosene lamp and laughing at their own folly in the darkness. See? When they weren’t thinking about it, they worked so well together. It was as plain as the cute, button nose on your face! He looks between the two of you, thick as thieves in cahoots against him, and realizes exactly what you two needed to get over yourselves.

“I Have A Great Idea!” Papyrus crows, accidentally throwing a whole hand of spades across the table. 

“'s not canoeing, is it?” Sans aks, propped precariously upon the back legs of his chair with his hat pulled over his face.

“I think that’s a different game.”

“could have fooled me.”

Papyrus stamps his boot strong enough to shake the table. “Listen, You Want Her To Learn About Ranch Life. _SHE_ Wants To Learn More About Ranch Life. We Can’t Do That If We Spend All Of Our Time IN The HOUSE!” The poor dishes clattered softly in protest. “Let’s Help Her Out! SHE’LL LOVE IT!”

You blink. “What are we talking about now?”

By contrast, Sans doesn’t seem lost in translation in the least. He rubs his chin and looks thoughtfully out the kitchen window, past the barn. “it’s not a bad thought, that.”

“OF COURSE IT’S NOT! And Besides, It Will Look Good When She Can Speak From Experience In Controversial Situations.”

“true, true.”

“Sans?” you ask, though without much hope that they will enlighten you. Both skeletons are obviously comfortable using these half-sentences and dropping the nouns every which way. 

“well, this dingus thinks that since you’ve taken to chorin’, you’ll want to learn every bit about how the farm is run an’ it makes no sense not to use every pair of hands what’s able. especially if the Lord’s chariot swings _very_ low.”

“THE GRANDIOSE SUNSETS! THE RUSTIC SMELL OF A CAMPFIRE!”

"i guess the whole point was to make sure someone was always home to take in the mail and feed the critters but i reckon we never got around to specifyin' _who_ was s'posed to rule the roost."

"SIZZLING HOT DOGS! HEART-STOPPING THRILLS!"

“I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dense. What are you actually suggesting, here?"

“he wants you to come rustle beetle-cattle with us - WE WANT YOU TO COME RUSTLE BEETLE-CATTLE WITH US!” they declare together. Finally! It felt so good to be on the same page that Papyrus and Sans smile at one another. Paps even punches his little-big bro playfully in the arm but then they both look back at the strange, hollow sound.

Your face is less amused. “Oh! Very funny,” you say, clapping your hands at their performance. “An excellent joke.”

“Not At All!” says Papyrus, brightly. “I Think You Would Be A Great Cowgirl!”

You try to wrap your brain around it. “Me? That seems…," your words fail to describe what that kind of woman looks like. Someone with the strength to pull down a raging bull _and_ well-ordered skirts. Who is that person? “I’m not really wrangling material.”

“Is That All? I Have A Pattern For A Pair Of Riding Trousers I Saw On The Fastest Vaquera Last Year… Hold On!” He turns and dashes to the sewing cabinet, rifling through a stack of periodicals.

“nothin' better for learning than jumpin' on in bareback," he says, winking behind Papyrus' back. "an' if that's too much well, darlin’, you can always fold.”

His challenge has the desired effect. “You’re serious?” you say, color high on your cheeks. “You really want me to come out with you?”

“sure as rattler poison kills a friendship.”

“That Isn’t True, Sans!”

“oh, go and boil your shirt,” he teased, sticking out his tongue sideways.

“Well, how early do we go? Is there something I should be packing or--?”

They both laugh heartily. Papyrus mimes wiping an orange tear from his socket and explains. “Oh No! Even Our Amazing Skills Combined Can’t Possibly Make You Ready To Rustle In One Day! We Will Have To Teach You How To Lasso!”

“Oh!”

“There’s Moving The Herd, Stopping The Herd, Reuniting The Herd When They Get Separated, Getting The Herd Around A Fence, Guiding The Herd Across A Creek--”

“and along a creek.”

“--Right, And Along A Creek! There’s Setting Up Camp, Tearing Down Camp, And Spending Quality Time At Camp, Watching The Weather, Tracking Predators, First Aid, Smoke Signals--”

“emergency signals, too.”

“Oh, Absolutely Emergency Signals.”

“This… sounds like a lot.”

“for certain, it is.” Sans’ voice is low and smooth, as always, easily conveying the gravity of the statement. You had never heard his singing voice but it was much the same; Paps hoped you would hear it someday. “it’s dangerous work an’ a lot can go wrong.”

“But There’s Nothing Like It!” Papyrus shouts in a fit of enthusiasm, feeling a little swept away.

"nothin' like it."

You look pensive, drying your hands over and over on a dishtowel. You're sorely tempted, it's obvious, but your lip is stiffly held against your teeth. An oddly familiar gesture.

"Hey," he says gently, "We'll Be Right There The Whole Time."

Maybe it wasn't the perfect thing to say - who actually knew what that was? - but whatever you were thinking, his clumsy reassurance swayed your mind enough to make you nod. "Very well, gentlemen, you've convinced me. I'll try it!"

"EXCELLENT!" Even Sans looks pleased.

“Oh, I’ll just wash up the supper dishes before I turn in. You all have to get up early tomorrow, it’s no trouble.”

“and now, so do you, little card counter.” Sans smiles, stretching his teeth warmly but her smile is too hollow. Perhaps he teased her too hard earlier. “goodnight, darlin’.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Serif.”

Sans sees himself off and you turn back to the washbasin. "Do You Need Help?" asks Papyrus before you get too far. He actually wants to ask if you're okay but he suspects you would be reluctant to share your feelings away from the gaming table. The moment you stood, the curtain of uncertainty closed between them again.

"Oh, no thank you. It'll hardly take a minute. You can go ahead to bed, if you like."

"If You Insist!"

"And Pa- Mr. Serif?" At your tentative words, he freezes.

"Yes, Human?"

"... Thank you. I really appreciate everything you've done for me."

"It's No Trouble At All For One As Kind Hearted As You," he says, every word as sincerely as he can be. "I Am Glad You Are Here."

"Good. I was beginning to worry." Satisfied, you turn to finish your chore. "Goodnight."

The lamp went out for good behind the door half an hour later, followed by your little feet clambering into the big bed next door. Paps breathed a big sigh of relief and thought his plan would be just fine if they could get out of their own way. How were they all going to be married if she couldn’t even use their names? And how was she ever going to stay and be happy if his lazy brother couldn’t stand not to push her over the edge? After the day's work, Sans wasn't even pretending to sleep, he was already sawing more logs than a lumber mill, but Papyrus's mind was still at work. It was a big puzzle, one that his journal said he was running out of time to solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird editing thoughts: if Papyrus were a human, I imagine him looking and sounding a lot like John Mulaney. I'm okay being alone in this.
> 
> If you’re getting a ‘boy pulls girls pigtails to tell her he likes her’ vibe, good. They made such an uneasy truce last time, it wouldn’t be realistic to suddenly become all sugar and spice and everything nice all of a sudden.


End file.
